Calling it "plausible deniability" implies that he condoned any negative results. I don't believe that to be true, and I do believe that if he'd made no commen

Calling it "plausible deniability" implies that he condoned any negative results. I don't believe that to be true, and I do believe that if he'd made no comment at all about contacting the NYT, many - if not most - of the people who contacted them in an unconstructive fashion would have done so anyway. I do agree that Scott knew what was about to happen - but I think his attempt to guilt trip his followers into not doing it even though he knew it would probably be futile was genuine.