Liberal group tied to secret McConnell tape

The 30-second ad shows American-born al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn explaining that anyone can go to a gun show and get a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and without showing identification.

“To say these attacks are desperate and extreme would be an understatement,” said Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager. “They are deplorable. The political left has proven they’ll stop at nothing to target people who disagree with them.”

Associated Press

A liberal political fundraising group in Kentucky is being tied to a secret recording of a campaign meeting held by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell in which his aides disparaged actress Ashley Judd.

The leader of Progress Kentucky and a volunteer were outside of the February campaign meeting and “never left a public hallway,” said attorney Ted Shouse, who is representing the group’s executive director, Shawn Reilly. The attorney said Reilly met with the FBI and is cooperating with the bureau’s investigation. The volunteer was Curtis Morrison.

“One, we’re innocent. Two, we’re at most a witness to Mr. Morrison’s criminal activity,” Shouse said. “There was clearly a recording. I can tell you that Mr. Reilly never entered Mr. McConnell’s office.”

Shouse did not explicitly say that Morrison made the recording. Morrison has not been charged with any wrongdoing. He has not returned phone calls or email and no one answered the door at his home Friday.

The recording was leaked to the liberal magazine Mother Jones and published earlier this week. Mother Jones said the recording came from a confidential source. It posted audio and a transcript of the meeting online.

On the recording, the Senate Minority Leader and his aides talked about opposition research into potential Democratic challengers, including Judd. Aides discussed Judd’s past bouts with depression and how the campaign might use that against her if she decided to challenge him in the 2014 election. The aides laughed about Judd’s depression, as well as her political positions and religious beliefs.

Judd, a former Kentucky resident now living in Tennessee, announced last month that she wouldn’t seek the Democratic nomination.

In the recording, McConnell began the meeting by telling aides the campaign had entered “the Whac-A-Mole period” and explained that means “when anybody sticks their head up, do them out.” That is the only time McConnell was heard speaking.

His campaign asked the FBI to investigate how the recording was made. Campaign manager Jesse Benton charged that liberals had bugged the office where the strategy session was held, likening it to the 1972 Watergate break-in of Democratic offices by President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign.

Under federal law, it is illegal to use an electronic device to secretly record someone without their knowledge if the recorder is not also a party to the conversation. Kentucky has a similar state law.

McConnell opened his campaign headquarters on Feb. 2 on the second floor of the 10-story Watterson Towers, on the west side of Louisville. About 75 people attended.

Progress Kentucky is a Louisville-based Political Action Committee with the singular goal of ousting McConnell, according to its website.

Progress Kentucky raised about $1,000 and spent $18 for the short time it existed in 2012, according to its year-end filing with the Federal Elections Commission. Most of the money it raised came through ActBlue, a fundraising website for Democratic candidates.

The group’s treasurer, Douglas L. Davis, resigned Tuesday, the same day the recording was published. Davis’ attorney, Brian Butler, said Davis was in Orlando, Fla., on the day of McConnell’s meeting.

“He had no knowledge that Sen. McConnell’s office was going to be secretly recorded,” Butler said.