How the AP reported that someone with access to Bernie Moreno’s email created adult website profile

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press reported Thursday that someone with access to a work email account for Ohio Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno created a profile in late 2008 on an adult website, seeking casual sexual encounters with men.

The story relied on records from a number of publicly available sources of information, including a leaked 2016 database from the website Adult Friend Finder, current records the site makes available online about past and present profiles, property records and business filings, as well as archived versions of websites for Adult Friend Finder and businesses that Moreno once owned.

The AP could not definitively confirm whether the profile was created by Moreno himself.

Read more: Trump-backed Senate candidate faces GOP worries that he could be linked to adult website profile.

Questions about the profile have circulated in GOP circles for the past month. On Thursday evening, two days after the AP first asked Moreno’s campaign about the account, the candidate’s lawyer said a former intern created the account as a prank. The lawyer provided a statement from the intern, Dan Ricci, who said he created the account as “part of a juvenile prank.”

“I am thoroughly embarrassed by an aborted prank I pulled on my friend, and former boss, Bernie Moreno, nearly two decades ago,” Ricci said. The AP couldn’t independently confirm Ricci’s statement and he didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Ricci donated $6,599 to Moreno’s campaign last year, according to campaign finance records.

Moreno’s lawyer, Charles Harder, insisted Moreno “had nothing to do with the AFF account.”

Here’s how AP reported the story:

MASSIVE DATA BREACH

In 2016, the website Adult Friend Finder was the subject