Did McCann pay for an endorsement? Aide says, "yes".

John McCann's campaign did themselves a mischief again. 

This time by shopping around a story to the Washington Examiner about McCann's recent fundraiser with Sebastian Gorka, a former foreign policy advisor at the White House who was fired by the Trump administration after a few months on the job.  The Examiner story leads with the following headline: 

"Sebastian Gorka wades into New Jersey primary for another $5,000."

The article ends with:

"Before supporting McCann in New Jersey, (Gorka) looked west, endorsed Republican Danny Tarkanian in Nevada — then a candidate for Senate — and collected another $5,000 in “speaking fees.” Asked in February whether he sold his endorsement to Tarkanian, Gorka said it was an “honorarium” and added that an endorsement sale “would be illegal.” 

When reached for comment for this story, Gorka answered: “Get a life you hack. You’re not a journalist so I have nothing to say to you and I’m blocking this email.”

Brutal stuff... which led to this morning's Politico story in which McCann claims to deny everything his campaign told the Examiner:

MCCANCEL PAYMENT -  The Washington Examiner, a conservative publication,  reports  via an anonymous campaign aide that 5th District Congressional candidate John McCann paid former Trump adviser Rick Gorka, who endorsed him and raised money for him, $5,000. McCann denies this on Twitter. "This not true. FEC filings will show my campaign did not pay Gorka a penny. The statement by my aide is simply not true." I've been waiting for McCann's FEC report because Gorka has a history of being paid not for his endorsement but, ahem,  a "speaking fee."  Of course, McCann or Gorka could have headed off that Washington Examiner story that McCann says is false if either had answered my question about whether Gorka was being paid when I asked it two weeks ago.

The conduct of the McCann campaign has raised eyebrows before.  Some key consultants on the campaign have bragged to some very reputable people about what they were being paid by McCann -- and yet their names never appeared on the McCann campaign's disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).  Now we have this Gorka affair.

Well, they don't call him "Stumbling John" McCann for nothing.  Shambolic.