Weekly Standard releases audio after RNC official accuses it of making up quote

The Weekly Standard released an audio clip Tuesday that it says proves it accurately quoted Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer. 

{mosads}Spicer told The Weekly Standard on Sunday night he wasn’t sure if grabbing someone’s genitals qualifies as sexual assault in response to a question about newly surfaced comments that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made in 2005 about pursuing women.

“I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer,” Spicer said in the post-debate spin room when asked specifically about Trump saying that, as a celebrity, approaching women, “You can do anything. Grab them by the p—y.”

Spicer accused The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post of misquoting him in reports following the Sunday night interview.

After Spicer’s denial, the Weekly Standard shared with The Washington Post “an audio recording of a man who clearly sounds like Spicer, in the spin room, speaking those exact words.” 

Spicer backtracked on Tuesday.

“While I was asked a question about a matter of law, it is never appropriate to touch anyone in an unwelcome matter,” he told The Washington Post. 

A BuzzFeed reporter said Monday she also had Spicer on tape speaking the quote in question.

just re-listened to my tape of this gaggle and yep, @seanspicer definitely said it https://t.co/o3DcRlChd4

— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) October 11, 2016

Trump and his supporters have been working to defend his decade-old remarks since Friday, when audio of the GOP nominee talking about unsuccessfully trying to seduce a married woman leaked.  

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything,” he said in the recording. “Grab them by the p—y.”

Many Republicans have since distanced themselves from his campaign, with some revoking their endorsements of the party’s presidential nominee. 

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol is an outspoken critic of Trump who helped spearhead the #NeverTrump movement earlier this cycle and pushed for an independent alternative to the GOP nominee.

On Monday, he wrote that the latest bombshell to rock the Trump campaign is a gift to the Republican Party.

“It provided an occasion, at the very last minute, for the party to dump a fundamentally unworthy and radically unfit nominee. At the very least it provided an occasion for the party to separate itself radically from that nominee.”