How convenient.

And expected.

While the news of multiple women alleging inappropriate conduct by then-candidate Trump was keeping headlines hot in October 2016, the real story was simmering behind the scenes.

A recent Wall Street Journal report states that in 2006, a year after the marriage of Donald Trump and Melania, the hay haired mountebank had an affair with porn star, Stormy Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford).

It was in October 2016, after the “Access Hollywood” tape made the news, where Trump can be heard boasting that his wealth and celebrity gave him license to molest women, that all the reports of him doing just that came to light.

And while Trump was calling over a dozen different women liars, his lawyer, Michael Cohen, was quietly paying the porn star $130,000 to sign a nondisclosure agreement, as she was about to start making the talk show rounds and spilling her guts.

Filthy, low grade, stuff. Just the kind of stuff that would make him an Evangelical icon, I suppose.

As it turns out, the story wasn’t completely hush-hush.

A Fox News reporter got wind of the affair in the heat of everything else.

So why didn’t the faithful get to hear about it?

According to CNN, Fox killed the story.

One of the network’s reporters, Diana Falzone, had filed a story in October 2016 about an alleged sexual relationship between Clifford and Trump, people familiar with the matter said.

Falzone had an on-the-record statement from Clifford’s manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, confirming that her client had engaged in a sexual relationship with Trump, three of these people said, and Falzone had even seen emails about a settlement.

But the story never saw the light of the day, to the frustration of Falzone, two of the people said.

“She had the story and Fox killed it,” one of the people familiar with the matter told CNN.

Interesting side note, Falzone, who normally covered celebrity news and sexual harassment-type issues for the network brought a lawsuit in May 2017 against the network for gender discrimination.

According to CNN, Noah Kotch, the editor-in-chief and VP of Fox News’ digital outlet gave a statement, saying they couldn’t verify all the details in the story, so they decided not to run it.

Daniels has issued a statement, denying the affair, as well as the payoff.

Clifford was in discussions with different news organizations leading up to the 2016 presidential election, however.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” was talking with Clifford about a possible interview regarding Trump, two people familiar with the matter told CNN last week.

Additionally, Slate and The Daily Beast have both said they had been in communication with Daniels about a possible story in the weeks leading up to the election.

Gee. What was she going to talk about? Sewing?

The editor-in-chief of Slate Group recently wrote in an article that he had spoken with Daniels, himself, and had a copy of an unsigned settlement, but that she suddenly stopped communicating with him.

He considered running the story he had, but then decided it would be to easy for her to deny they’d communicated, with no independent corroboration.

The Daily Beast said in an article published Friday that it had been in talks for an interview with Clifford before the election, and that it had three sources talking about the relationship between Clifford and Trump, but that she had backed out of an interview not long before Election Day.

But there was no payoff.

I’m not sure what sort of corroboration they wanted.

I’m pretty certain Fox would have killed the story, regardless.

It’s that filtering of what they allow people to hear. I’m pretty sure that makes them “fake news.”

Let’s be honest, though.

Had the story come out, would it have made a bit of difference? I kinda doubt it.