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(Image source: The New York Times)
BY ELIZABETH HAGEDORN
A development in the Mitch McConnell secret-recording scandal — a Democratic operative now claiming
members of the liberal Super PAC Progress Kentucky are to blame.
Earlier this week, left-leaning magazine Mother Jones released the audio, provided by a source
allegedly asking to remain anonymous. The tape featured McConnell and his advisors planning
ways to attack his potential political rivals in 2014, including Ashley Judd. She has since
declined to run. (Via
“She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's
been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know,
she's suffered some suicidal tendencies.” (Via Mother Jones)
At McConnell’s request, the FBI launched an investigation into whether his reelection
headquarters had been bugged. (Via ABC)
Louisville’s WFPL first reported Jacob Conway, a local Democratic operative, said Progress
Kentucky’s Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison boasted back in February they secretly recorded
the meeting while standing in the hallway outside the McConnell’s campaign office.
Conway told CNN,
“I didn’t pay any mind to it until the Mother Jones story broke out and when I heard
the Mother Jones story tape, it was the exact same things that they told me was discussed,
I put two and two together.”
As for David Corn, the Mother Jones reporter who published the audio — he’s staying
mum, according to Politico.
An attorney for Reilly told the The Washington Post that his client is, quote, “...at most
a witness to potential criminal activity.”
Progress Kentucky raised eyebrows a month ago for a string of offensive tweets targeting
McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
“Last month they were attacking my wife’s ethnicity, and then apparently also unbeknownst
to us at the time, they were bugging our headquarters. It was quite a Nixonian move.” (Via Fox
News)
So, just who is Progress Kentucky? A writer at Salon quotes a progressive activist from
the Bluegrass state, saying:
“[T]hey are a long running joke in Louisville... Everyone in KY (liberals included & especially)
can’t believe how much attention they’ve gotten in the national media.”
Indeed, the group raised just over $1,000 and spent just $18 of it in the last election
cycle. (Via OpenSecrets.org)
... and its website seems to be entirely dedicated to waging a war on McConnell.
As for the Kentucky Senator, TIME magazine points out the plan to embarrass him may have
backfired as the attention has now shifted away from McConnell attacking Judd’s mental
health.
“This is the second time in two months that Progress Kentucky, a group whose entire
existence seems geared toward taking down McConnell, has instead propped him up. With
enemies like these, who needs friends?”