Jake Tapper Called NBC "Slimy" In E-Mail To Mark Sanford's Office

In a series of emails recently released by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's office, ABC's Jake Tapper called out his colleagues at NBC News over their coverage of the Sanford affair.

The main email in question, which was released under the Freedom of Information Act, was sent by Tapper to Sanford's communications director Joel Sawyer on June 23, just one day before the governor's bombshell press conference, under the subject line "NBC spot was slimy". Tapper included a transcript of the NBC report in the email and called it "pretty insulting". Tapper also forwarded Sawyer a tweet from NBC's David Gregory.

ABC vice president Jeff Schneider said that Tapper was simply "carrying some water for producers who knew he had a relationship with the governor's office."

Tapper himself has apologized for the email, writing to Politico:

"Busted. In retrospect, the story I was referring to wasn't slimy enough -- at that moment the only ones who knew of the governor's affair were Sanford, his wife, his mistress, and the State newspaper. But I shouldn't have said that, and I'll try to leave the media criticism to others from now on."

Tapper also apologized to Gregory via Twitter this morning, calling his own actions "bad form".

Tapper's tactics are indicative of the jostling that went on in the media in the days before Sanford's press conference. Reporters from Fox News, CBS and CNN also reached out to Sawyer in an effort to gauge the governor's whereabouts.

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