National File has independently confirmed the claim of Alabama radio host Matt Murphy, who revealed that AL.com was given evidence of the kinky affair between Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill and his mistress, Cesaire McPherson, in October of last year. Rather than report it at the time, AL.com waited 7 months, until after National File exposed the sordid details, to play audio they obtained that inspired Merrill to confess to the affair.
Last week, radio host Matt Murphy reported, “Mistress of Merrill claims [AL.com] sat on affair story for a year,” before adding. “Correction. October 2020.” National File has since confirmed that the news outlet was given details related to the affair last year.
Correction. October 2020
— Matt Murphy (@mattmurphyshow) April 9, 2021
Last week, Merrill confessed to the affair after National File posted screen shots, exclusive candid images, and a 30-minute interview with McPherson, in which she detailed Merrill’s love of being on the receiving end of anal play and painful sex. “Merrill enjoyed having his anus breached with sex toys, according to McPherson, who also said that Merrill used his government vehicle to visit her home and used his official phone to send text messages,” National File reported. “McPherson said that Merrill engaged in physical fights with her that led to bruises on her body, with the politician grabbing and shoving her. McPherson also said that Merrill is a “real bad racist” who made disparaging remarks about African-Americans in her presence.”
Disturbingly, Merrill’s affair began around the same time after he was instrumental in defeating voter fraud claims regarding the 2017 election between Roy Moore and Doug Jones. As noted by Alabama Political Reporter, after the contentious race between Moore and Jones, there were nearly 800 complaints of fraud or voter irregularities. Merrill closed the overwhelming majority of these cases by September of 2018.
After Jones’ victory, Moore refused to concede the election, alleging voter fraud and irregularities in the state that some have compared to those seen in critical battleground states during the 2020 presidential election. Merrill refused to acknowledge these allegations, and ultimately certified Jones’ victory.
Merrill closed these cases only two months before national media would detail Project Birmingham, a Silicon Valley-funded effort to inundate the state of Alabama with a Russian-style disinformation campaign to defeat Moore and see Jones elected to the U.S. Senate. National File was unable to find an instance of Merrill discussing the implication of Project Birmingham.
However, the malfeasance generated by big tech billionaires resulted in at least one apology. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman apologized for his role in the disinformation campaign, claiming he did not know how his money was used. “I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing,” he said. “For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject.”