TORONTO – For the rest of the world, the crack video scandal began just after 8 p.m. on May 16 for with an article posted on Gawker.com and then hours later on TheStar.com suggested a video existed of the mayor smoking what looked like crack cocaine.
For the mayor’s office, it began half an hour earlier, with an email subject-lined in all-caps: URGENT REPORTER’S INQUIRY FROM GAWKER MEDIA.
This was Gawker editor John Cook, seeking comment on a video he said he saw of Ford smoking crack. His article went online shortly thereafter.
Over the following several hours, the mayor’s office was bombarded by emails from local and international media, including one asking “has the mayor ever smoked crack cocaine?”
The frenzy of emails sent to the mayor’s office and between his staffers were released following a freedom of information request that sought emails from the mayor’s staffers in May. The release totalled thousands of pages, with hundreds of emails redacted.
Because the request was so huge, the city’s changing its policy on completed freedom-of-information requests: In this instance, anyone who wants these records must pay the full fee, paying for work already paid for.
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The mayor didn’t admit to smoking crack until November when he described using it during a “drunken stupor.” He ignored the question for months, saying “I do not smoke crack cocaine” and, at another point, “there is no video.” When admitting it, he said reporters never asked him the proper question.
Read More: Here’s everything Mayor Rob Ford has said about crack video allegations
But that night, Christopolous said in an email he was “begging” the mayor to stay off talk radio.
“Exhausting,” Chrostopoulos wrote.
The next day, the mayor simply said the allegations were “ridiculous.”
Six days later, after being fired from his volunteer position as head coach of the Don Bosco Eagles football team, the mayor tried to have his aides organize a party for the players but was rebuked by Towhey.
“Do not answer calls from the mayor tonight. Take the night off,” Towhey wrote to staffers in an email titled “Direct Order.”
“Will explain in the AM.”
The emails also revealed Norm Kelly, who would become deputy mayor and take on many of Ford’s mayoral powers, getting his two cents’ in with the mayor’s office.
“Oh, boy!!!!!” reads a May 17 email to Towhey subject-lined “Today’s Star.” Hours later, just after midnight, he emailed Towhey again. “What a day,” the subject line reads. “Hope you survived it. Not to add to your misery but…think of the worst case scenarios and prepare for them.”
(A third email, sent May 19, suggested drawing inspiration from Genghis Khan)
When asked about the contents of the emails Tuesday, Councillor Doug Ford said the mayor is “focused” and is “moving the city forward.”
“We’re in election season, so I guess a lot of people are going to be throwing shots at us,” he said. “We can dig up the past, we can dig up six months and keep dragging this out through the election.”
Doug Ford suggested the mayor works from “6 in the morning and doesn’t finish until 12 midnight.” But he’s been observed by reporters – monitoring his movements, as the mayor doesn’t make his schedule public – arriving at city hall after noon, and leaving in the mid-afternoon.
“He’s not obligated to tell the media every place he goes,” councillor Ford said.
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