RFK Jr’s Running Mate Allegedly Tried to Bribe Washington Post $500,000 to Reveal Sources
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Nicole Shanahan has been “tapping a vast divorce settlement” from Google co-founder Sergey Brin to launch herself into the conservative political ecosphere , reported The Washington Post — and the reporting includes the stunning claim that she offered a $500,000 bribe to the paper’s reporters to reveal the sources who were dishing about her.
The Post’s in-depth profile of Shanahan by Elizabeth Dwoskin, Ashley Parker, Meryl Kornfield, and Aaron Schaffer, “Nicole Shanahan’s astonishing journey from tech royalty to rising MAGA star,” was published on Wednesday and covers the attorney and tech entrepreneur’s path to becoming Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s running mate and enjoying a new-found fame on the right after he dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
Shanahan has “become a potent advocate” for Trump, reported the Post, by “encouraging independently-minded voters to back his bid for the White House on Fox News, an array of podcasts, and her increasingly popular social media feed.” She’s also “rebranded herself as a wellness guru promising to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ (MAHA)” — an obvious play on Trump’s MAGA slogan.
The article is full of juicy details about Shanahan’s whirlwind romance with Brin — reportedly begun after they met while she was engaged to her first husband, Jeremy Kranz, who “soon discovered the affair” and “sought to have the marriage annulled after only 27 days” — a volatile relationship that sparked divisions with Brin’s family and professional colleagues and then collapsed in scandal amid a Wall Street Journal report she had an affair with Brin’s longtime friend Elon Musk.
As sources for this reporting, the Post cited “34 people familiar with her rise, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters, along with court documents, photographs, text messages, and screenshots,” and noted that many of Shanahan’s former Silicon Valley associates are now concerned she will use the massive pile of money she got in her divorce settlement with Brin to ” to tip the razor-thin race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, or push unverified medical views to a broad audience.”
The article also includes this anecdote of how Shanahan reacted when she learned about the Post was working on a story about her — by attempting to bribe the reporters to reveal their sources:
Shanahan became aware of reporting for this article when she and Kennedy were still campaigning. In June, she texted an associate who had been contacted by The Post to suggest a deal: Shanahan said she would “pay your friend” — The Post reporter — “half a million dollars to be a whistleblower” to expose people Shanahan claimed were spreading false information about her.
The contact relayed the offer to a Post reporter, who did not respond. After multiple requests for interviews with Shanahan since April, The Washington Post sent a detailed list of questions to her last week. She said she rejected parts of The Post’s reporting, but did not offer specific answers. “I’m so sorry you feel it is appropriate to do this for political motivations,” she said. “It’s a very sad state our country is in.”
Read the article at The Washington Post .
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