Recently CNN editor Adam Levine, (not to be confused with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine) received major backlash from Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale after a piece was put out by Vicky Ward, apparently under Adam Levine’s authority.
The article was claiming that a Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to a firm owned by Brad Parscale’s wife. Levine initially tweeted out Ward’s article:
“NEW: Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Brad Parscale’s wife, reports @VickyPJWard”
SEE TWEET FROM @cnnadam BELOW:
NEW: Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Brad Parscale’s wife, reports @VickyPJWard
— Adam Levine (@cnnadam) August 30, 2019
https://t.co/mXSyBsAgMe
Parscale fired back at CNN on Twitter, calling CNN ‘liars’. He says in a tweet after Levine’s that his wife is a member on some of his companies to do filings and bookkeeping.
SEE TWEET FROM @parscale BELOW:
.@cnn are liars trying to write a dirty story about my wife. I own all my companies. My wife is member on some of them to do filings and bookkeeping.
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) August 30, 2019
This is a disgusting trick to make a very simple thing look nefarious. Her last name is Parscale, what would that hide?
The Blaze reported:
The CNN story questioned payments made to Parscale’s wife from a pro-Trump super PAC named America First Action that was first established in 2017. The report documents $910,000 paid to Red State Data and Digital, which is founded by Candice Parscale.
Federal election experts told CNN the arrangement raises concerns about coordination between a super PAC and the official campaign, which is forbidden by election law.
“This is a perfectly legal and appropriate arrangement, which is firewalled, with zero chance for coordination,” Brad Parscale said to CNN about the accusations.
The high profile campaign manager then fired off another, even more vicious tweet pointed directly at @cnnadam (Adam Levine). In it, he refers to the CNN editor as a scumbag and says that editors like him hide behind writers but they are the true evil.
“I’m going to start calling out editors that attack us viciously and hide behind writers that can’t control their own headlines. Journalists get blamed but the editors are the true evil. @cnnadam attacked my wife with zero visibility. You’re visible now, you scumbag.”
SEE TWEET FROM @parscale BELOW:
I’m going to start calling out editors that attack us viciously and hide behind writers that can’t control their own headlines. Journalists get blamed but the editors are the true evil. @cnnadam attacked my wife with zero visibility. You’re visible now, you scumbag.
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) August 30, 2019
After the second tweet from Brad Parscale it appears as though the article was edited and the caption of the same article retweeted again by Adam Levine now reads:
“Updated: Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Trump’s campaign manager”
The caption tweeted by Levine no longer referencing Parscale’s wife at all, also does not reference the writer anymore, as he did in the original tweet. This gives the appearance, that as Parscale implied, Levine is taking responsibility for the story here. In the updated article, it goes on to continue to try and paint the situation with Parscale and his wife as being in a possible grey area when it comes to campaign finance, but it is much less damning that the previous accusation after Parscale offers up the information about what’s really going on. A short excerpt from the update reads:
After CNN initially published a story about Parscale’s wife, Candice, being an owner of Red State, her husband contacted CNN and acknowledged he owns the company even though she is listed on legal paperwork. “I am the owner of Red State,” Parscale told CNN. Parscale said he hadn’t originally wanted to disclose his ownership publicly because there are no available records connecting him to the company.
SEE UPDATED TWEET BELOW:
Updated: Pro-Trump super PAC paid thousands to firm owned by Trump’s campaign managerhttps://t.co/g4pePCFBch
— Adam Levine (@cnnadam) August 31, 2019
It certainly appears that although CNN is trying to do damage control the story that no longer is what they claimed it was exactly, they likely wouldn’t have put it out in the first place had they known that Parscale would put Levine, not the author, in the limelight with his powerful pedestal.
