We don't know how much money he paid to the person he's talking to. We only know that he _did_ pay money to the person he's talking to, since it's added as a di

We don't know how much money he paid to the person he's talking to. We only know that he _did_ pay money to the person he's talking to, since it's added as a disclaimer in the article. Also it would be silly of Vox to leave that disclaimer out as it' was publicized earlier so they can't run from it. He's thinking he's chatting with an accomplish who's going to help him spin some positive PR to help his last ditch fund raising. But in fact he's chatting with someone who's desperate to distance themselves from a person they received money from, so as not to end up looking like they got paid for biased coverage, which lets be honest is what most likely happened.