George Stephanopoulos, currently of ABC News, is a longtime Clinton hack. But the argument has long been that we KNEW he was a Clinton hack because he’d been an advisor and de facto press secretary during the early years of the Clinton administration.

Well, now we know a little more.

#BREAKING: George Stephanopoulos discloses $50,000 contribution to Clinton Foundation http://t.co/T7hscMjUSA pic.twitter.com/vKOQxL0xBG

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 14, 2015

The timeline of this admission is especially bad, because the Washington Free Beacon was about to publish the story and asked ABC for comment, which gave Stephanopoulos time to “leak” the story to Politico.

Stephanopoulos, a former aide to President Bill Clinton, confirmed the donation to POLITICO’s Dylan Byers after the Free Beacon contacted ABC News for comment. The host, who acknowledged making two donations of $25,000 between 2013 and 2014, issued a statement of apology for failing to disclose his contributions.

“I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they’re doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply,” Stephanopolous said. “I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize.”

And let’s not forget that Stephanopoulos grilled Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer about not having “hard” evidence in his book.

ABC, of course, wants this swept under the rug.

#Breaking: ABC News will NOT take punitive action against Stephanopoulos: “We accept his apology. It was an honest mistake."

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) May 14, 2015

However…

Reminder: Olbermann was "suspended indefinitely without pay" from MSNBC for making three $2,400 donations to Democrats.

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 14, 2015

ABC will cling bitterly to the "charity, not campaign" chimera. @EsotericCD @NoahCRothman

— S D Winkler (@sdwinkler) May 14, 2015

Oh wait guys I'm sorry, my mistake — Clinton Foundation is a "charity," not a mostly-opaque slush fund for hiding Clinton wealth.

My bad.

— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) May 14, 2015

Sean Davis of The Federalist makes the excellent point that Stephanopoulos cannot be anywhere near the 2016 presidential debates AT ALL.

Under no circumstances should George Stephanopoulos be allowed by the Republican National Committee to set foot on any debate stage. By his actions, he has proven he cannot be trusted to be an objective, transparent, and accountable debate moderator. But it shouldn’t stop there.

ABC News, if it cares one whit about its reputation, should ban Stephanopoulos from doing any 2016 campaign coverage. It’s bad enough that he was once a Clinton White House staffer. But everyone went along with the charade that his political days were behind him and that he just wanted to be an objective reporter. That charade ends today.

I think ABC just proved that they don’t care about the charade by proving, with the wave of its forgiving hand, that they knew it was a charade all long. The question is, will the rest of the media be as forgiving?

Paging Keith Olbermann….

UPDATE 5:30 PM EDT:
Hold the phone.

ABC official confirms to @FoxNews #GeorgeStephanopoulos is now changing the number he gave to the #ClintonFoundation to $75k per @edhenry

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) May 14, 2015

Yeah, those two separate donations that Stephanopoulos said he made in 2013 and 2014. Uh, not so much.

Breaking: @GStephanopoulos actually made 3 donations to the Clinton Foundation, not 2. Totaling $75,000, not $50,000.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 14, 2015

Credit to Andrew Stiles of Washington Free Beacon, who caught that Stephanopoulos’ name was listed in the $50,001 to $100,000 donation group.

Stephanopoulos says he gave $50,000, but is listed as a $50,001-$100K donor. Maybe just another foundation oopsie. https://t.co/fWt6hD0VBB

— Andrew Stiles (@AndrewStilesUSA) May 14, 2015

And the blowback is now large enough that Stephanopoulos has said he will not moderate the GOP primary debate next February.

The “Good Morning America” co-anchor and host of “This Week” said that he would not moderate ABC’s GOP debate, which is scheduled to take place in February in New Hampshire. Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that Stephanopoulos should be prohibited from moderating any debates during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“I won’t moderate that debate,” Stephanopoulos said. “I think I’ve shown that I can moderate debates fairly. That said, I know there have been questions made about moderating debates this year. I want to be sure I don’t deprive viewers of a good debate.”

But Stephanopoulos said that he would not recuse himself from coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign, despite urging from the office of Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, which said Thursday that Sen. Lee would be advised not to go on “This Week” unless the host “recuses himself from all 2016 coverage.”

Not enough. All the GOP candidates need to team up with Rand Paul on this one, immediately.