Toronto’s Mayor is the focus of scandalous allegations this morning.  The Toronto Star says a cellphone video that appears to show Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine is being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade. The story says two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times and say it appears to show Ford inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe.  They say Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off camera speaker. “I’m f…ing right-wing,” ford appears to mutter at one point.  “Everyone expects me to be right-wing.  I’m just supposed to be this great …” and his voice trails off.  At another point, the Toronto Star says he is heard calling Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a “fag”.  Later in the 90-second video,  he is asked about the Don Bosco football team he coaches and he appears to say (though the Star says he is mumbling), “they are just f…ing minorities.”

The Star makes a point of saying there is no way to verify the authenticity of the video which was the subject of a report on the U.S. online news site Gawker.com.  A lawyer retained by Ford, Dennis Morris, told the newspaper that some details related to the video were false and defamatory.  Morris told the Star that by viewing any video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. “How can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Morris said.  Ford’s chief of staff, Mark Towhey, apparently would not listen to questions by the Star last night and is said to have abruptly hung up when the Star called.

The video apparently surfaced after an incident earlier this year when Ford was accused of being “out of it” at the Garrison Ball.