It was bad enough that NBC's now Today Show host Billy Bush was part of the awful conversation with Donald Trump about grouping women. 

Bush is heard on the video laughing as Trump talks about grabbing women by the pussy.

Making it even worse, NBC got beat on their own in house video by the Washington Post. 

The Peacock claimed that they were aware of video footage of Donald Trump making lewd and disparaging remarks about women for nearly four days, but held onto the recording until lawyers finished reviewing the material.

NBC News was scooped by The Washington Post, which took just five hours to vet and post its story. A tip from an individual led to The Post breaking one of the most consequential stories of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Was NBC really waiting for legal? Or did they know that this would be a torpedo into the side of Billy Bush. You have to wonder if the video did not include a current NBC staffer, would the network have been much quicker in releasing the story?

NBC claims that the legal department held up the release of the story. Yet the Washington Post had their legal department "OK" the story in a matter of hours. 

Some inside NBC think that it wasn't the lawyers that held up the release, but it was NBC suits that wanted to get the video out, but worried what it might do to their newest star. 

The scoop by WaPo forced NBC to do the story they were holding and in the end, sink Billy Bush in the process. 

One wonders, if the Washington Post didn't do the story, would NBC have ever done it? Or was protecting their own more important? 

H/T Washington Post