Beginning March 23, the National Enquirer published two major stories claiming that 2016 presidential contender Ted Cruz had had affairs with five women, thereby undermining his claims of conservative, moral leadership.

Today’s column provides an approach to understanding such allegations, which are increasingly common against high officials and candidates. Targets include Alabama Gov. Gov. Robert Bentley (R), who faces vast public pressure to resign or face impeachment. Bentley is shown below at left in a collage via WKRG-TV with his purported lover and top aide Rebekah Caldwell Mason, and former Alabama Law Enforcement Agency chief Spencer Collier, whom the governor fired after Collier protested what he called a scandal costing taxpayers huge sums.

Claims of sex scandal are increasingly common regarding high officials and would-be officials, as we reported this month here.

Our recommended approach, as voiced in a talk this month at the National Press Club, is for those in the public to remember four factors:

1. First, recognize that a shockingly high percent of such allegations are likely true, as shown via books, confessions and documents that are typically available years after the fact. But such evidence may be augmented by a Supreme Court decision later this spring regarding the records of the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, dubbed by the media as “The DC Madam.”
2. Second, however, any specific individual — including Cruz and his five alleged lovers cited by the Enquirer — may be completely innocent and smeared solely as part of the often vicious, effective, and highly paid “opposition research” operations of major candidates. Cruz has vigorously denied the allegations.
3. Third, sex scandals involving important government officials are often tied to efforts to disgrace them and their causes, or to blackmail them into favorable government actions. Government contracts or tax policies for favored businesses and foreign policy intrigues are often involved. These involve such high stakes that the costs of escorts and secret video equipment are relatively modest; and
4. Finally, valid and important accusations can come from tabloid and other alternative publications, in part because the mainstream publications often suppress or fail to investigate valid allegations for political or “national security” reasons implicating CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies.

Those were the core points of my talk April 13 before the McClendon speaker society at the press club, which amplified the April 8 column DC Madam Attorney: Client Revelations This Week; Cruz News?

it described how Palfrey’s attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, threatened April 8 to release the government and business names of her clients unless federal courts grant a hearing on his request to release at least one customer name he describes as vital to the 2016 presidential race.

The Supreme Court, after initially rejecting via Chief Justice John Roberts Sibley’s request to consider lifting a 2007 gag order on client names and phone numbers, reconsidered the matter via a separate appeal to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.