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If you wanted to pick a when the honeymoon ended for Mayor Vince Gray, you’d do well to pick Feb. 19.

That’s when The Washington Post first published a story by reporter Nikita Stewart on the Gray administration’s practice of paying some senior aides more than the Fenty administration did, and hiring a handful of politically connected children.

So how did the Gray administration respond to the story? Funny you should ask, because LL has a copy of an email exchange between Gray’s spokeswoman, Linda Wharton-Boyd, and his former head of H.R., Judy Banks, about the story.

The slight peek behind the curtain shows that Banks, apparently, felt betrayed.

“Thought Nikita was a friend……” Banks wrote to Wharton-Boyd at 10:33 p.m. on Feb. 19.

The next morning, Wharton-Boyd responded: “She is rather friendly press; but her editors are not.”

So now you know: Stewart is friendly (LL can verify that she is in fact very nice), and Post editors are not.