Mr. Breitbart, a conservative blogger, has established his Web site, BigGovernment.com, as the place to go with juicy tidbits of a scandal in the making. On Monday, he claimed a moral victory after Mr. Weiner, Democrat of New York, verified that suggestive photos posted earlier on his site were indeed sent by him to Ms. Broussard.
“I’m here for some vindication,” Mr. Breitbart said as he took to the podium at Mr. Weiner’s own news conference.
But before vindication, he sought legitimacy from the same mainstream news media he regularly assails. For the revelations about the congressman, Mr. Breitbart made a partnership with ABC News, which interviewed Ms. Broussard and published its own account of her relationship with Mr. Weiner.
Mr. Breitbart, whose credibility was damaged by his release of a selectively edited tape of Shirley Sherrod, an Agriculture Department official, said he felt ABC News could help the Weiner story rise to something more than a scandal flamed by the conservative blogosphere. “One of the reasons I went to ABC, believe it or not, was to take this out of the partisan rancor realm,” he said in a phone interview.
“I am as offended when John Ensign acts like an idiot, when Chris Lee acts like an idiot,” he added, referring to two Republican politicians who have faced embarrassing disclosures about their private lives.
ABC News acknowledged Mr. Breitbart’s role in uncovering the story but declined to comment on their talks with him.
Mr. Breitbart, who used to help Matt Drudge run The Drudge Report and worked for Arianna Huffington, remains a hero among many conservatives even while many liberals and members of the mainstream news media hold their noses at the mere mention of his name.
He said he had never met Ms. Broussard or her friend who suggested she reach out to Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Drudge.
Mr. Drudge did not respond to requests for comment, and ran only links to other stories about Mr. Weiner.
“I’ve only talked to both of them on the phone a few times,” Mr. Breitbart said, adding that the first time he heard from them was around May 20.
A week later, a member of an online group calling themselves #bornfreecrew discovered a lewd photo that Mr. Weiner had sent to a Twitter follower in Washington. This member, identifying himself as @patriotusa76 on Twitter under a false name, Dan Wolfe, shared the post on Twitter with his followers, adding his comments: “Anthony Weiner tweets X RATED PIC TO FOLLOWER! RT RT RT.”
On Twitter, he also alerted Dana Loesch, a blogger for Mr. Breitbart, saying “Anthony Weiner just tweeted an X Rated pic to a follower.” He later shared screen shots of the photo and the post with Mr. Breitbart. By the next morning, Mr. Breitbart had published an account of the events on his blog, titled “Congressman Claims ‘Facebook Hacked’ as Lewd Photo Hits Twitter.”
When asked why conservatives with damaging information about Democrats and their causes regularly come to him, Mr. Breitbart said, “They know I’m willing to march through the fire with them.”
Mr. Breitbart’s relationship with the traditional news media has been strained by mistrust on both sides — with the conservative blogger repeatedly criticizing the major news organizations for ignoring stories of consequence to the political right, and the mainstream media harboring suspicions about Mr. Breitbart’s motives and methods.
He has been a major force behind legitimizing James O’Keefe, the conservative activist and video muckraker who helped bring down the community-organizing group Acorn and later drew negative attention to NPR and Planned Parenthood.
Mr. O’Keefe also came to Mr. Breitbart and BigGovernment.com after he filmed an undercover interaction with Acorn workers as they appeared to advise him on how to avoid prosecution for a variety of unsavory activities, like child prostitution.
Recognition still proved hard to come by for Mr. Breitbart on Monday. Fox News was the only cable channel to carry extended footage of his remarks at the Weiner news conference. CNN and MSNBC played the video but talked over Mr. Breitbart.
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