In 1996 as Communications Director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, US Congressman Tim Johnson’s campaign approached me with evidence that Senator Larry Pressler had used campaign funds for personal use – a lot of funds for a lot of personal use.

Pressler and Johnson were engaged in a tight race and the Johnson staff knew that if they released the evidence, it’d allow Pressler to claim it was false and blame Johnson’s team for political desperation.

Instead, they wanted the research published by a reputable news organization – with no fingerprints attributed to them or to DSCC.

So, I took the evidence of Pressler’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in violations for expensive meals, motels, dog grooming, major baseball tickets, and dry cleaning to the Washington Post.

Their reporter, Guy Gugliotta, was impeccable, highly professional and interested. We began our covert meetings in downtown DC restaurants in a weirdly deep throat fashion, and Guy immediately saw that the research was documented and accurate.

But he protested the obvious question – why don’t we or the Johnson campaign release it?

I countered that Pressler broke the law, not Johnson and if the DSCC or Johnson released the findings, it became political when neither of us had anything to do with Pressler’s malfeasance.

Gugliotta was convinced but then we got Una-bombed.

Guy was called to Montana to cover the case of Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber who’d been captured and charged with 16 bombings across the country which killed three and injured 25 people.

Guy was gone for weeks, and I didn’t want to jeopardize my established credit with Guy and the Post by giving the story to anyone else.

So we waited. But Johnson was behind and without the story, we feared we’d lose a winnable seat.

About the time I had to give up on the Post, Guy returned, the Post relented and the rest is history. They ran the story and Johnson surged ahead and held on to defeat Pressler.

The Unabomber almost claimed one more victim – this one a political one.