Punkonomics (@DearBalak)

Two days ago, Gawker reported that CUNY was paying General David Petraeus $200,000 to teach one course next year. Three hours after the story broke, CUNY informed Gawker that the salary was in fact lower: Petraeus would only be getting $150,000 and would also be giving some of it to charity. Yesterday, Republican State Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor challenged the timing of that announcement, pointing out that CUNY had yet to produce any documentary evidence to show that it had not revised the salary downward after—and only after—the Gawker story had broken.

CUNY is now claiming that they have a letter, dated May 29, 2013, from Dean Anne Kirschner to Petraeus, setting out the $150,000 salary. They’ve posted it on this website.

There’s just one problem: since posting the letter, an inside source tells me, administrators have taken down it down twice. Right now, all I’m getting when I…