Didn't they do this last week too? Indeed they did. The fact that ABC News feels the need to keep responding to claims that they corrupted the debate process may indicate that their denials lack credibility with a certain segment of the American populace.

That would be the segment that actually watched ABC News cook the presidential debate with one-sided and phony "fact checks," as well as the questions asked -- and those not asked. 

Anyway, the Daily Beast got another denial from ABC News yesterday, but only limited to the allegations in a "whistleblower affidavit" that has made the rounds on social media:

The document was first published Sunday—by an X account with nearly 100,000 followers, and the name “Black Insurrectionist”—as a six-page “affidavit,” which claimed to have been written by an ABC technical worker the day before the debate.

The name of the person who signed the document is obscured, but in the six pages, they make claims which—if true—would be explosive.

The allegations include that Harris’ team allegedly negotiated specific camera angles to portray her more favorably than Trump. The document also claims the campaign negotiated rules with ABC without involving the Trump team, and it managed to get the network to avoid specific topics including President Joe Biden’s health; Harris’ tenure as “Attorney General in San Francisco”; and her brother-in-law and adviser Tony West.

In a statement to the Daily Beast, ABC News did not address any of the specific allegations: “ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on and which clearly state: No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”

The "whistleblower affidavit" has always looked dodgy, for a number of reasons. First off, why would an insider at ABC News give this kind of explosive testimony to a pseudonymous Twitter account with few followers? If they work in "Manhattan New York," Fox News can be easily found in Midtown. (I've been there; nice place, and hardly obscure.) Or the New York Post is another obvious option that would luuuuuuurve dirt on ABC and Disney. If you want to be classy, go to the New York Sun or Wall Street Journal. Or self-publish and identify yourself. (One could even send it to us, but I'd recommend Fox or the WSJ first.) Handing it over to some fringe account going by the nom de plume of "Black Insurrectionist" is not a confidence builder. 

The other reason it's suspicious, though, is the same reason that ABC News feels compelled to keep denying it. It's so on-the-nose for anyone who watched the debate that it has a strong odor of "fake but accurate." It almost reads as though it got reverse-engineered from the obvious failures on display by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis. And it probably was reversed-engineered, based on voluminous and accurate criticisms in the aftermath of the debate:

The person then makes their claims, including that Harris was given a “significantly smaller podium” than Trump’s and would be given “split-screen television views” that would “favorably” present her better than Trump. It also alleged it was “widely known” throughout ABC that Trump would be fact-checked and that Harris’ camp demanded he would be—without looping in his team.

It also alleged the network agreed not to raise certain topics, including Biden’s age and allegations that Tony West, an Obama Justice Department official, and her brother-in-law, embezzled billions of dollars in “taxpayer funds.”

Well, did ABC ever ask about Joe Biden's odd withdrawal and his cognitive decline? Donald Trump actually brought it up himself, but neither Muir nor Davis ever followed up on Kamala Harris' potential role in covering it up. The Tony West topic would be more suited for an interview than a debate, but no one's asking about it even on the rare occasions that Harris allows reporters to question her. However, the moderators never asked her about "price gauging" in the debate, nor about China, or what her role really was on border security in the White House.

But on the affidavit itself, let's remember that "fake but accurate" is still fake. That's a tough lesson to learn, of course. Dan Rather still hasn't figured it out twenty years later. 

The new denial also has some credibility issues, though. It reads like a kind of modified limited hangout. The only aspect of this rumor that ABC News explicitly denies is the question-sharing part of an alleged deal. What about the fact-check arrangement? Curiously, the Daily Beast only gets an anonymous denial on that point, which makes Power Line's Scott Johnson curious:

A source familiar with the matter also dismissed the purported fact-check “assurances” as untrue. Harris’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

So Bolies relies on “a source familiar with the matter” to deny the alleged commitment by ABC News not to fact-check Harris.

For reasons stated in my original post, the authenticity and veracity of the affidavit should be doubted until we have more information with which to assess it. I stand by that assessment, but the Daily Beast story gives me pause.

Was there a deal? Probably not, and even if there were, this "whistleblower affidavit" wouldn't prove it. But ABC and Disney knew what they wanted out of this debate and obviously cooked it to produce the result we saw. Harris didn't need to negotiate that ... and her team clearly understood it, as did Biden's team. That's why they insisted on having ABC News run the final debate.