The News division seems willing to put more effort into being vindictive than in breaking major news stories.

It has been a tough week for the news industry. (This makes for 127 consecutive weeks now, for the record.) On Tuesday Project Veritas dropped the bomb of a news story about ABC News refusing to cover the Jeffery Epstein story. Then last night, despite the blatantly damning video of Amy Robach detailing how she had the entire story of Epstein and it was squashed by her network, Brian Stelter comes out and states it was the reaction of those on the right that was the bigger controversy.

Now today, as the story continues to metastasize, we are learning that ABC News is focusing on the problem — it will be going after the leaker of this video. Journalist Yashir Ali has been in contact with officials from ABC News and he was told they will not be covering the story, and this new eruption will not be commented on their broadcasts. Then they went further with their details of the fallout.

“ABC News execs believe they know who the former employee is who accessed footage of @arobach expressing her frustrations about her shelved Jeffrey Epstein story,” Ali said via Twitter. “That former employee is now at CBS and ABC execs have reached out to CBS News execs.” More than a mere formality, they continued with the explanation of their impending actions.

In a statement, an ABC News spokesperson tells me: “We take violations of company policy very seriously, and we’re pursuing all avenues to determine the source of the leak.”

Thus, when it comes to an individual who may have exposed sloth and avoidance within a network, they will pursue all avenues to determine who it was that embarrassed them. Mind you, when it comes to a man who Robach on tape described as “The most prolific pedophile this country has ever known”, ABC News decided to pursue exactly zero avenues.

This, of course, exposes another dose of media hypocrisy. Most of the news networks have been perfectly comfortable in parroting the messaging from the Democrats regarding the whistleblower behind the Ukrainian impeachment proceedings. The identity must be protected, at all costs. When faced with its own whistleblower however ABC News seems to toss out all of those high-minded pronouncements. Rooting out the source and exposing them is of vital importance. This, according to the network perfectly comfortable using anonymous sourcing for its own stories.

It is not too difficult to figure out why the ABC mavens smothered the story. With the British crown delivering regular threats the network saw the potential of losing access for the last royal wedding. But that does little to explain why it sat on the story and interviews after that event. As most are aware, Bill Clinton is frequently connected to Epstein. Considering there is a former Clinton administration figure — George Stephanopolis — sitting high up in the ABC News hierarchy it takes little curiosity to conclude why they might be apathetic in pursuing the matter further.

One other additional aspect that could explain the potential of a Clinton roadblock for their story. In the video, Robach mentioned they had this story in place three years ago. That would have placed the timing right in the heart of the election cycle. It takes little imagination to see an ABC News division faced with that kind of explosive news item affecting the Clinton name during the 2016 general election and deciding to shelve the whole story.