Mary was a leaker

[kerry]

I'm doing research into the newspaper articles of that time. I was keeping my eye out for this issue. I have to go back and look but I think the story originated much earlier than that in some form.

It may be conflated with the fact that during February 1862 with the Wikoff issue, Lincoln was widely reported as personally appearing before the committee investigating it. He did so voluntarily. Apparently there are no records of what he said in the archives, so it was off-the-record. None of the papers reported on the content of the speech or questioned it, which is odd. I don't know why they'd suddenly agree to stop probing when they'd been after revealing Mary as the culprit. Willie was dying at the time, so maybe Lincoln went in and begged them not to go further. The reports could have been wrong, but it does seem like Lincoln appeared before a committee in defense of his wife.