Regan: You Can Buy My Silence on Giuliani

[NOTE: The original version of this post contained an unfortunate and unintended implication that Judith Regan might agree to conceal information about criminal wrongdoing as part of a legal settlement with News Corp. To correct any misunderstandings, I've altered some of the language and added this clarifying post.]

Let's get this straight: Judith Regan, by her own account, has dirt on Rudy Giuliani. This dirt is serious enough that it could derail his presidential campaign, at least in the view of Rupert Murdoch, who (allegedly) felt it was worth the risk of a lawsuit just to discredit her preemptively.

Ignore, for the moment, the illogic of this premise -- the idea that Murdoch would consider it safer for his pet candidate to have Regan wandering the streets with a grudge than to have her suckling comfortably at the News Corp. teat.

No, what I want to know is: Why is this the first we're hearing of it?

The New York Observer reports today that Regan turned down a settlement offer worth $6.5 million in August. (Five months earlier, she had rebuffed another one for $6 million.) "We told them their number was unacceptable," says her attorney, Bert Fields. "They were warned in advance that she was going to file if they didn't increase the settlement offer."

So, with Giuliani leading the Republican field in national polls, Regan considers a deal -- one that would presumably, in exchange for cash and some words of regret from News Corp., include a promise on her part to keep quiet about at least some of the information she's now threatening to divulge in her upcoming trial.

Whether or not what Regan knows would actually change voters' minds about Giuliani is irrelevant. She believes it would. But she's willing to withhold it from us -- she's willing to change the course of American history -- for the right sum. Has anyone in her camp considered how all this would sound?