Network honchos at ABC are scrambling to keep their George Stephanopoulos scandal from becoming a Brian Williams disaster.
Insiders at ABC News said higher-ups were blindsided by Stephanopoulos’ hefty undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation, saying the contributions may have made damaged goods of their biggest star.
“This is a bigger crisis than ABC will admit,” a source told The Post.
“George is the centerpiece of their 2016 coverage. By donating to the Clintons, he has blown his credibility in one catastrophic move.
“How can he moderate a debate or question a Republican candidate without questions over his impartiality?”
Stephanopoulos is ABC’s chief anchor and chief political correspondent. The “Good Morning America” anchor admitted last week that he has donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation since 2011.
After apologizing on air Friday during the morning show, he repeated the mea culpa Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” possibly under threat of suspension.
“ABC is hoping this doesn’t spiral into a full-blown Brian Williams-style disaster,” the source said. “If more information comes out about George’s ties to the Clintons, things could get worse.
“While ‘GMA’ is the big ratings vehicle, ‘This Week’ is the show George most loves, and they could suspend him from that, so he was forced to apologize again on Sunday.”
Stephanopoulos said on air Sunday: “Over the last several years, I’ve made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including the Clinton Foundation. Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the foundation.”
Williams was suspended for six months without pay from his $10 million-a-year job as “Nightly News” anchor after misrepresenting events that occurred while he was covering the Iraq war in 2003.
“George is one of the smartest guys in the business,” the ABC insider said. “Why would he be stupid enough to make this donation and then even more stupid not to disclose it to both his audience and his bosses?”
But Stephanopoulos, who was a senior policy adviser in the Clinton White House, may have had other motives for the donations.
Another source said Stephanopoulos’ relationship with the Clintons was at a low in 1999 after his first book, “All Too Human: A Political Education,” was published following his departure from the White House during President Bill Clinton’s second term.
“Through the donation to the Clinton Foundation, it appears that George was trying to get back into the Clintons’ good graces,” the source explained. “But the question is why. It is not like it would give him special access to them. In the grand scale of Clinton Foundation donations, $75,000 is a drop in the ocean.”
Stephanopoulos, meanwhile, continued to be hammered.
“Obviously, Stephanopoulos has favorable feelings toward Hillary and Bill Clinton; he gives their foundation his money and his time,” Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Clinton Cash,” wrote in USA Today on Sunday.
Additional reporting by Aaron Short