NBC News did indeed order a producer last month to stalk the jurors in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.

On Nov. 18, just days ahead of the verdict, Judge Bruce Schroeder banned MSNBC from the courthouse for the remainder of the trial. In explaining his decision, the judge cited a Nov. 17 traffic incident in which a man, James Morrison, was stopped in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for running a red light. Morrison had been closely following a bus carrying members of the Rittenhouse jury, police said. Morrison told the police he works for MSNBC and that he had been instructed by his supervisor in New York to tail the bus.

NBC News released a statement eventually admitting an employee was indeed involved in a “traffic citation.” However, the statement conspicuously glossed over the issue of whether Morrison had been ordered specifically to track the Rittenhouse jurors.

This week, Kenosha officials released footage proving Morrison had, in fact, been tailing the jurors and that he had, in fact, been ordered to do so by NBC's New York office.

In the footage, an official identified as Officer Jones asks Morrison, "Were you following a vehicle?"

"I was trying to see,” said Morrison, “I was being called by New York going, maybe, these are the people you need to follow. But I don't know. I was trying to —"

"Trying to what?" Jones interjected.

"Just do what they told me to do,” Morrison said.

Jones pressed for clarification, saying, "New York told you to follow a vehicle?"

"Yes,” Morrison stated flatly.

"Your offices in New York or what?" asked Jones.

"That's right,” said Morrison.

Jones followed up, asking the obvious: "How did they know about this vehicle?"

"I don't know,” Morrison said. “I mean it was discreet, I wasn't, like, going to talk to anybody or anything, just trying to find a location, that's all."

Another police officer can be heard saying in the footage, “So, we've got news media telling him to follow our unmarked vehicles?"

Morrison continued, claiming his supervisor in New York, NBC booker Irene Byon, instructed him specifically to follow the bus to collect information on the jurors as they deliberated the facts of the Rittenhouse trial.

Morrison and the officers then called Byon. This is where things get interesting.

"We're trying to figure out what's going on here, why you have a reporter or a producer following vehicles out here," Jones said in the phone call, moments before Byon identifies herself as "Irene, a booking producer with NBC News."

Byon said, "We were just trying to, respectfully, just trying to see if it's possible to find any leads about the case, and so we were — we were just keeping our distance, just to see where people involved in the trial are positioned."

She adds, "By no means were we trying to get in contact with any of the jury members or whoever is in the car, we just were trying to see where key players in the trial may be at.”

This is the most relevant and interesting moment of the traffic stop. It’s interesting because Jones never mentioned anything about jurors. He never said anything about the nature of the vehicle Morrison was following. Byon’s mention of the jury came of her own accord, unprompted by the responding officers.

Call it a Columbo moment, in which the guilty party implicates herself by denying something she was never accused of.

NBC admits only that Morrison was involved in a “traffic citation.” However, as Byon’s unprompted remarks regarding the jury show, there’s evidence now NBC explicitly tasked Morrison with tailing the bus.

NBC can try to ignore what it did. It can try to gloss over the nature of the bus incident with a mealy-mouthed statement focusing on allegations Judge Schroeder never made. But we don't need an outright admission of guilt to know why Morrison was in Kenosha that evening or why he ran a red light. The police footage this week makes it clear.