Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley did cheat on her husband - twice.
This is according to a new report from the Daily Mail.
Depending on how closely you have followed Haley over the years, you may or may not know that she faced cheating allegations in 2010. This was before she became the governor of South Carolina when she was still a South Carolina lawmaker.
Haley's husband - the person whom she is alleged to have cheated on - is Michael Haley. The couple has two children together and they remain married until this day.
The cheating incidents are alleged to have taken place around 2007-2008. Haley is accused of cheating on her husband with two different men: Will Folks and Larry Merchant.
Folks, at the time, was helping Haley as a communications consultant, while Merchant was a lobbyist. Both men, in 2010, signed affidavits insisting that they each had a separate sexual relationship with Haley.
Haley, at the time, denied the accusations, claiming that she was "100% faithful" to her husband. Now, however, the Daily Mail says that it has evidence that Haley's denials "are false."
The Daily Mail reports, "New witnesses have come forward telling DailyMail.com that Haley's denials of two alleged 2008 affairs are false, and that the supposed trysts were brazen and widely known among South Carolina politicos."
In addition to this, the Daily Mail, for the first time, has published the two affidavits that were signed, in 2010, by Folks and Merchant.
There is not sufficient space here to go through the affidavits.
But, here is a little taste of what Folks had to say:
Representative Haley and I shared our first kiss while sitting in her parked car outside of MacDougal's restaurant and bar in downtown Columbia, S.C. This kiss took place in early 2007 following an evening with friends at the nearby Liberty Taproom. After this first kiss, Rep. Haley drove us to the parking lot behind the neighborhood center at Emily Douglas Park where we parked for approximately forty-five minutes. There we slid back the seats of her Cadillac SUV so that Rep. Haley could climb on top of me.
Haley, at the time of this writing, has not responded to the renewed allegations.
This report from the Daily Mail comes as Haley is getting ready for the New Hampshire Republican primary, which is set to take place on Jan. 23, 2024. It is expected that this could be Haley's best chance to win a primary, after coming in third place in the Iowa caucuses.
Having said this, the fact is that Haley continues to significantly trail former President Donald Trump - by over 50 percentage points, on average - in 2024 Republican presidential primary polls. For this reason, it is probably unlikely that the renewal of these cheating allegations will have much of an effect on Haley's 2024 chances.
