Le Monde, France’s paper of record, reported yesterday that in the months prior to Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, allies of Nicolas Sarkozy tried several times to leak a police report about the IMF chief having sex in a car with a prostitute. According to Le Monde, three separate sources told the paper that the police found Strauss-Kahn in a “compromising posture” in Paris in 2007, although the police decided against legal action. The timing of both the incident and the leaks are significant. Back in 2007, Strauss-Kahn had recently been defeated in the Socialist primary and was no threat to Sarkozy. So his presidential campaign decided “at the highest level” not to use the information. In fact, later in 2007, Sarkozy nominated Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF. However, as polling for Strauss-Kahn increased ahead of the 2012 presidential election, people in Sarkozy’s camp began to tell journalists they had a “hold” on his opponent. Before the conspiracy theorists who think this was an elaborate international set-up get rolling again, we’d like to point out the difference between (allegedly!) committing a crime and blabbing about said crime to the press.
Sarkozy allies ‘tried to leak earlier sex scandal about Strauss-Kahn’ [Le Monde via Independent UK]
