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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Did Mitch McConnell Use Senate Employees for Oppo Research on Ashley Judd?
—By Nick Baumann and Adam Serwer
| Tue Apr. 9, 2013 2:11 PM PDT
A secret recording of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and aides discussing in February how they might attack actor/activist Ashley Judd, then a potential 2014 challenger to McConnell, attracted widespread attention after Mother Jones published it Tuesday morning. Much of the news coverage focused on the McConnell team's comments about Judd's religious views and her mental-health history. But the tape might raise ethics questions for McConnell and his staff.
Senate ethics rules prohibit Senate employees from participating in political activities while on government time. But the tape indicates that several of McConnell's legislative aides, whose salaries are paid by the taxpayer, were involved with producing the oppo research on Judd that was discussed at the February 2 meeting.
More Mother Jones coverage of Mitch McConnell and the 2014 Kentucky Senate race.
Presenter: So I'll just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through. The first person we'll focus on, Ashley Judd—basically I refer to her as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material. [Laughter.]
Ah, you know Jesse slogged through her autobiography. She has innumerable video interviews, tweets, blog posts, articles, magazine articles.
The presenter was explaining that the opposition research on Judd was compiled by several people. "LAs" is congressional parlance for legislative assistants; one of the legislative assistants, Phil Maxson, gets his own shout-out. The question is whether Maxson and the other McConnell LAs were digging up material on Judd while on government time. If they were engaged in this research while on annual leave or vacation—or working outside Senate hours—they wouldn't be violating Senate rules. But if this was done on Senate time, McConnell could have a problem. Here's how Tara Malloy, an expert on ethics rules at the Campaign Legal Center, described the issue in an email:
Any assessment under the Ethics rules would require some more facts—most particularly whether any official resources were used in connection to the conversation or oppo research, and/or whether the conversation or other activities took place on government property. In general, however, the ethics rules do not bar staffers from engaging in campaign activity provided they do it on their own time and do not involve government resources or property.
Here is the relevant excerpt from the Senate Ethics Manual:
As discussed more fully below, Senate Rule 41 prohibits Senate staff, with the exception of specified "political fund designees," from handling federal campaign funds. Subject to that restriction, however, and as long as they do not neglect their official duties, Senate employees are free to engage in campaign activities on their own time, as volunteers or for pay, provided they do not do so in congressional offices or otherwise use official resources. An employee's "own time" includes time beyond regular working hours, any accrued annual leave, or non-government hours of a part-time employee. Staff may not be required to do political work as a condition of Senate employment. Just as Senate employees are free to campaign for their employing Members on their own time, they may also use their free time or, with the permission of their employing Members, reduce their Senate hours (with a commensurate reduction in pay) to campaign for presidential candidates, other federal candidates, or state or local aspirants. With respect to the question of leave time to perform campaign activities, it is the Committee's understanding that the Senate does not recognize a "leave of absence."
We asked Jesse Benton, McConnell's campaign manager; Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for his Senate office; and Phil Maxson, the LA named on the tape, to explain whether the oppo work was done on Senate time, but they did not respond.
Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is working to defeat McConnell, sent out a series of tweets on Tuesday noting this issue: |
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Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:01 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Secret Tape: McConnell and Aides Weighed Using Judd's Mental Health and Religion as Political Ammo
A recording of a private meeting between the Senate GOP leader and campaign aides reveals how far they were willing to go to defeat the actor/activist.
—By David Corn
| Tue Apr. 9, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
This story has been updated with statements from Mitch McConnell's campaign and Mother Jones.
On February 2, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the US Senate, opened up his 2014 reelection campaign headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, and in front of several dozen supporters vowed to "point out" the weaknesses of any opponent fielded by the Democrats. "They want to fight? We're ready," he declared. McConnell was serious: Later that day, he was huddling with aides in a private meeting to discuss how to attack his possible Democratic foes, including actor/activist Ashley Judd, who was then contemplating challenging the minority leader. During this strategy session—a recording of which was obtained by Mother Jones—McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views.
Last month, Judd announced she wouldn't challenge McConnell, whose reelection campaign could become one of the most watched races of the 2014 cycle (if a serious Democratic opponent emerges). But at the February 2 meeting, McConnell and his team were fixated on Judd. McConnell told his aides that at the early stage of the campaign they had to clobber any potential challenger
:
I assume most of you have played the, the game Whac-A-Mole?” (Laughter.) This is the Whac-A-Mole period of the campaign…when anybody sticks their head up, do them out.
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Referring to the Louisville newspaper, he continued, "And we're even planning to do it with the Courier here shortly"—indicating he was eager for battle with the media. (A female aide piped up, "We're anxious for that.")
For much of the Judd discussion, McConnell was silent as aides reviewed the initial oppo research they had collected on Judd and weighed all the ways they could pummel her. The recording was provided to Mother Jones last week by a source who requested anonymity. (The recording can be found here; a transcript is here.) McConnell's Senate office and his campaign office did not respond to requests for comment.
The aide who led the meeting began his presentation with a touch of glee: "I refer to [Judd] as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there’s such a wealth of material." He ran through the obvious: Judd was a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama, Obamacare, abortion rights, gay marriage, and climate change action. He pointed out that she is "anti-coal."
But the McConnell gang explored going far beyond Judd's politics and policy preferences. This included her mental health. The meeting leader noted:
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. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.
In her 2011 memoirs, All That Is Bitter & Sweet, Judd recounts her past bouts with depression, noting that she had considered suicide as a sixth-grader and that as an adult she had checked into a rehab center for depression. (The Jesse mentioned might have been Jesse Benton, whose wife is the granddaughter of former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and the niece of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)*—who was hired last year by McConnell to run his reelection effort. Three years ago, Benton worked on Rand Paul's successful tea-party-driven Senate primary campaign against a GOP establishment candidate handpicked by McConnell. Benton did not respond to a request for comment.)
The McConnell aides, though, raised the possibility of doing more than calling attention to Judd's well-known history; they discussed how they could make her seem a true weirdo. After citing Judd's previous mental-health issues as possible campaign ammo, the meeting leader played a tape in which Judd spoke about the culture shock and blast of sensory stimulation she has sometimes experienced when returning to the United States from overseas:
I call it the American anesthesia. You know, I come back to this country. I freak out in airports. The colors, the sounds, all those different ways of packaging the same snack but trying to, you know, make it look like it's distinct and different and convince consumers that they have to have it. I mean all of that. The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.
The McConnell aides burst out laughing as the Judd quote continued:
But in a few weeks, you know, I'm driving along smooth roads and I think nothing of it. I'm, you know, choosing between four different brands of cereal from plastic dispensers so that I don't have to have, you know, ugly, mismatched boxes on my shelf, and I don’t think anything of it.
Amid the guffaws, the meeting leader quipped, "So pink fuzzy socks are of concern."
He also contended that Judd was vulnerable on the religion front:
She is critical…of traditional Christianity. She sort of views it as sort of a vestige of patriarchy. She says Christianity gives a God like a man, presented and discussed exclusively with male imagery, which legitimizes and seals male power, the intention to dominate even if that intention is nowhere visible.
He maintained that Judd was no fan of the American family:
I think too she's clearly sort of anti-sort-of-traditional American family. I think Jesse tracked this down. She described having children as selfish, and she thinks it's unconscionable to breed…She also is critical of, of fathers giving away their daughters in marriage ceremonies. She says it's a common vestige of male dominion over a women's reproductive status when her father gives her away at a wedding.
He played another recording of Judd:
I still choose the God of my understanding as the God of my childhood. I have to expand my God concept from time to time, and you know particularly I enjoy native faith practices, and have a very nature-based God concept. I'd like to think I'm like St. Francis in that way. Brother Donkey, Sister Bird
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Laughter erupted again, with one guy in the meeting exclaiming, "Brother Donkey, Sister Bird!" The group didn't seem to realize that Judd was referring to well-known stories about St. Francis, who once preached a sermon to birds—"my little sisters"—and who referred to his own body as the "Brother Donkey." (In her book, Judd identifies herself as a Christian and often refers to church and prayer.)
With his comrades laughing about Judd's reference to donkeys and birds, the chief presenter remarked, "That's my favorite line so far. Absolute favorite one so far."
The McConnellites were keen on portraying Judd as a carpetbagger. The oppo researchers had located clips when Judd had referred to San Francisco or Tennessee as her home. "Not only has she clearly claimed Tennessee as her home," the meeting leader remarked, "she's actually mocked Kentucky to Tennessee audiences. She was bemoaning the low voter turnout among women in Tennessee. She said, 'People, that's worse than even in Kentucky.'" And, he added, she owned a mansion in Scotland.
The McConnell team clearly believed that they had plenty to work with and relished Judd's possible entry into the race. "That's sort of the tip of the iceberg," the meeting leader remarked. "Like I said, you know, we're still drilling down and there's a wealth of material, and it's just hard to get all the way around it."
After running through Judd's liabilities, the group turned to Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old Democratic secretary of the state, who was (and remains) a prospective McConnell challenger. The fellow in charge of the meeting referred to a Freedom of Information Act request filed "through a third party" that aimed to uncover damaging information about her actions in government, and he noted, "The best hit we have on her is her blatantly endorsing the 2008 Democratic national platform." He also claimed "she definitely has a very sort of self-centered, sort of egotistical aspect." His evidence? Grimes "frequently" refers to herself in the third person. And to make this point, he played a recording in which Grimes noted she had made the last name of her in-laws "popular" when she married into their family. He seemed to be working with scraps. As of this meeting, the McConnell squad had not dug up much on Grimes.
With Judd's decision not to run, McConnell won't have to decide whether he must assail an opponent for being candid about her past depression or for holding religious views he can mock as unconventional in order to keep his Senate seat. But he and his crew, no surprise, were prepping for an all-out crusade against Judd. Two weeks after this meeting, Benton was interviewed by a local NPR station and said that McConnell had "set a goal of running the best statewide campaign in the history of United States American politics." And that, no doubt, included the best oppo research operation McConnell's hefty campaign funds could buy.
Update: Jesse Benton, McConnell's campaign manager, released a statement responding to this story on Tuesday morning: "We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Nixonian tactics to bug campaign headquarters is above and beyond."
Update 2: The McConnell campaign has reportedly asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Attorney's office in Louisville to investigate how the tape was made.
Update 3: Here is more from Benton, via NBC News: "Senator McConnell’s campaign is working with the FBI and has notified the local U.S. Attorney in Louisville, per FBI request, about these recordings. Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Sen. McConnell’s campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished will presumably be the subject of a criminal investigation."
Update 4/
Mother Jones statement: We are still waiting for Sen. Mitch McConnell to comment on the substance of the article. Before posting, we contacted his Senate office and his campaign office—in particular, his campaign manager, Jesse Benton—and no one responded. As the story makes clear, we were recently provided with the tape by a source who wishes to remain anonymous. We published the article on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of any kind of bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that, except to say that under the circumstances, our publication of the article is both legal and protected by the First Amendment.
Correction: The text has been updated to reflect that Benton is Ron Paul's grandson by marriage only—he married Ron Paul's granddaughter.
David Corn
Washington Bureau Chief
David Corn is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief. For more of his stories, click here. He's also on Twitter and Facebook. RSS | Twitter
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Ashley Judd in DC: I'm a Three-Time Rape Survivor |
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Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:10 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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On February 2, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader facing reelection next year, held a private meeting at his Louisville, Kentucky, campaign headquarters with several aides to discuss opposition research collected on his potential challengers and how best to defeat possible foes. Much of the conversation focused on actor/activist Ashley Judd, who at the time was the most prominent of McConnell's potential Democratic opponents, and McConnell and his aides considered assailing Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views. (Judd has since announced she will not run against McConnell.) Mother Jones has obtained a recording of the meeting. Here is the article based on the recording. Below is a complete transcript of the recording.
Sen. Mitch McConnell: If I could interject…I assume most of you have played the, the game Whac-A-Mole? [Laughter.] This is the Whac-A-Mole period of the campaign…when anybody sticks their head up, do them out, and we're even planning to do it with the Courier here shortly, so…
Female voice: We're anxious for that. [Laughter.]
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Male voice: You guys…
Presenter: So I'll just preface my comments that this reflects the work of a lot of folks: Josh, Jesse, Phil Maxson, a lot of LAs, thank them three times, so this is a compilation of work, all the way through. The first person we'll focus on, Ashley Judd—basically I refer to her as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material. [Laughter.]
Ah, you know Jesse slogged through her autobiography. She has innumerable video interviews, tweets, blog posts, articles, magazine articles.
Male voice: [Muffled interruption.]
Presenter: Yeah, it is really hard to get your arms around…
The good news is, she's to the far left of every issue she's taken a public stance on, not just far left, nationwide…[Inaudible.] So you know one of the first themes we can sort of hit on, clearly, is that she openly supports President Obama.
[Starts recording of Ashley Judd casting Tennessee's votes at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, September 2012.]
Judd's voice: …The most diverse delegation in Tennessee history joyfully and unanimously knows that we are in this together, and joyfully casts its 90 votes for Barack Obama, the 44th president…
Other voice: Thank you, Tennessee. Tennessee casts 90 votes.
Presenter: That obviously leads to another issue we'll get to in a minute about her Tennessee links. Here's just another sample, a wealth of material…
[Plays clip of Judd.]
Judd's voice: I am committed to President Obama and Vice President Biden. They're my candidates and I will be a surrogate in the campaign and do whatever I can…
Presenter: Example, there…Clearly a theme that's easy to hit is that she's an out-of-touch, Hollywood liberal, and her grandmother, Polly Judd, referred to her as that. She was critical of the party in the '90s, the traditional Democratic Party, for giving too much support to the center and away from the left. You can see that quote below that kind of accentuates that. Another thing is she's clearly anti-coal. She's tweeted that "the era of the coal plant is over, unacceptable, it's the dirtiest. We in the US can do better, we need to innovate."
She wrote in the Hill, "Coal companies say Appalachia needs mining for jobs. Again, false." "We can see here coal is a 19th-century fuel, this my friends is the 21st century." [Editor's note: The previous sentence quoted here was not from Judd's Hill op-ed but from her blog].
I've omitted all of her mountaintop removal stuff. It's a whole separate category. It doesn't quite test as well. But she has, we have her on film, she's led protests. She's done speeches at National Press Club condemning mountaintop removal.
And then she's also on the record for climate change and cap and trade.
[Plays clip of Judd responding to reporter Nicholas Ballasy, in red carpet interview, May 2010.]
Judd's voice: I had the chance to testify before a House subcommittee on the cap and trade legislation and specifically designating 5 percent of the revenue trade generated by cap and trade to help ameliorate and offset the damage global climate change is doing to different environmental systems. So it's…
Presenter: So you can see there she's on the record supporting cap and trade. I mean clearly she's a carpetbagger. This is coming from a carpetbagger himself so I can appreciate. So she hails here, as you can see.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: …so to me San Francisco is my, my American city home.
Presenter: So Phil Maxson found that. So basically she claims San Francisco is her home. She also earlier in that clip says she has a 415 area code on her cellphone, which is also a San Francisco number. Here, she clearly indicates her linkage to the Volunteer State.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: And then I graduated in Kentucky and went to UK. But there was this moment when I was about 18 years old, and sister was on the road, and she called me, you know back when cellphones were that big and she said, "Lordy, I can't wait to get home." And it just clicked: Tennessee is home. [Laughter.]
Male voice: Yes it is, ma'am. [Laughter.]
Presenter: So not only has she clearly claimed Tennessee as her home, she's actually mocked Kentucky to Tennessee audiences. She was bemoaning the low voter turnout among women in Tennessee; she said, "People, that's worse than even in Kentucky."
Male voice: Do we have that audio?
Presenter: No, that's a written quote, I believe, and then she owns—again, pending her divorce settlement—but she currently owns a multi-million dollar mansion in Scotland. So as [Sen.] Rand [Paul] said, she sort of is linked with Scotland as well as with Tennessee, and then we also have the San Francisco footage. And Josh found this nugget, she's embracing clearly Obamacare here.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: You know I talk a lot about health and Obamacare, which I use in a positive way, not derisively.
Presenter: I think too she's clearly sort of anti-sort-of-traditional American family. I think Jesse tracked this down. She described having children as selfish, and she thinks it's unconscionable to breed. So you put that with what we'll talk to you later about her sort of pro-choice stance and it's sort of a, you know, pretty extreme posture to take. She also is critical of, of fathers giving away their daughters in marriage ceremonies. She says it's a common vestige of male dominion over a women's reproductive status when her father gives her away at a wedding. And then she's clearly for pro-abortion.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: Hi. I'm Ashley Judd and I'm reaching out to you today on behalf of NARAL Pro-Choice America. [Laughter.]
Presenter: She's an open advocate as you can see. Anyhow I know this is sort of a sensitive subject but you know at least worth putting on your radar screen is that she is critical…[inaudible] sort of traditional Christianity. She sort of views it as sort of a vestige of patriarchy. She says Christianity gives a God like a man, presented and discussed exclusively with male imagery which legitimizes and seals male power, the intention to dominate even if that intention is nowhere visible.
And this is sort of an interview that sort of manifests this sort of I would say oddly syncretic approach to Christianity.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: I still choose the God of my understanding as the God of my childhood. I have to expand my God concept from time to time, and you know particularly I enjoy native faith practices, and have a very nature-based God concept. I'd like to think I'm like St. Francis in that way. Brother Donkey, Sister Bird. [Laughter.]
Presenter: Brother Donkey, Sister Bird! [Laughter.]
Male voice: The people at Southeast Christian [Church] would take to the streets with pitchforks. [Laughter.]
Presenter: Brother…That's my favorite line so far. Absolute favorite one so far. [Laughter.]
She also is an open advocate of gay marriage. You can see this is what she tweeted after election night when Maryland approved same sex marriage. "It's okay to love whom you love." And then she talks about Maryland's bill.
Ah, and again. 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. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s. Phil Maxson found this, which sort of I think is a pretty revealing interview.
[Plays recording.]
Judd's voice: I call it the American anesthesia. You know, I come back to this country. I freak out in airports. The colors, the sounds, all those different ways of packaging the same snack but trying to, you know, make it look like it's distinct and different and convince consumers that they have to have it. I mean all of that. The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge. [Laughter.]
But in a few weeks, you know, I'm driving along smooth roads and I think nothing of it. I'm, you know, choosing between four different brands of cereal from plastic dispensers so that I don't have to have, you know, ugly, mismatched boxes on my shelf, and I don't think anything of it. You know?
Presenter: So pink fuzzy socks are of concern. [Laughter.]
Female voice: …at Fancy Farm. We'll all take pink fuzzy socks. [Laughter.]
Presenter: So, again…[Laughter.] So, that's sort of the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, you know, we're still drilling down and there's a wealth of material, and it's just hard to get all the way around it.
With Alison Lundergan Grimes it's sort of more traditional issues, as far as, you know, needle in a haystack sort of the inversion of that. Through a third party we've got a state FOIA request that's been pending for some time regarding various and sundry parts of her administration, that department. I hope we'll have it soon, but that's outstanding, and it should be here soon.
The best hit we have on her is her blatantly endorsing the 2008 Democratic national platform. This sort of goes back to the Kyle Simmons adage about be careful what you say to friends.
[Plays Grimes interview with Jim Pence, from Hillbilly Report.]
Jim Pence's voice: I'm going to ask you this. Do you support the national Democratic Party platform?
Grimes' voice: I do, Jim. You know, unlike my opponent, I am a lifelong Democrat, born and raised—and, and proud to stand up and say I am a Democrat, and running on the Democratic Party ticket.
Presenter: The funny part of that footage right after that, you hear the interviewer saying, "Oh, it looks like you're getting the hook here from your folks"—probably because she just endorsed that. So the question is what's in the Democratic platform. Well, it's a wealth, you know, sort of familiar things. Obviously she endorses then-Sen. Obama, she increased stimulus, voicing support for Obamacare…
Male voice: [Inaudible.]
Presenter: That's coming too, card check, cap and trade, tax hike, Dodd-Frank, all theses things are part that she endorsed by doing that. Now all the entitlement problems, support for gays in the military, climate change legislation, renewal of the assault weapons ban, and as Jesse says, support for abortion [inaudible]…Those are all in the 2008 platform. And if she wanted to walk away from it, which I don't think she could do, her dad was actually on the platform commission. [Laughter.]
The other thing, too, is she obviously publicly endorsed Obama 2012. She was too smart to use his name in a sentence. But she says, "My support of our party and our nominee is well known, and it's no secret I'll be in North Carolina to support our nominee and the party." I think you could probably take that to mean she'd also support the 2012 platform, which sort of, the same sort of parade of horribles we saw earlier.
And then Josh has sort of put this together. And this is, if you see a lot of footage of her, she definitely has a very sort of self-centered, sort of egotistical aspect. And Josh, this is just one of many that we put together. But she's very sort of a, sort of it's all about her, the theme that I would call this. And this is sort of an example about this. She uses her, likes in speeches, she'll frequently use herself in the third person.
[Plays recording.]
Grimes' voice: In my family, in my family, to Dr. and Mrs. Grimes, who didn't know how popular I'd make their last name when I married into it.
Presenter: A lot of kind of awkward little things like that sort of show about her sort of self-perception, I guess you could say. In addition to those two, we're also…
Female voice [interrupts]: She's going to be at the Somerset Chamber Tuesday. This Tuesday. She's their speaker for Tuesday.
Presenter: Also we're going to take a look at folks who, potential primary folks, as well. Matthew Bevins, I label him "Tea Party not afraid to turn on the government." He owns two businesses, related businesses, in Connecticut which manufacture bells, historic factory that they have. It's about 140-50 years old.
This article has been revised.
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Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:13 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Mitch McConnell Will Fundraise With Billionaires After Saying the GOP Is Not The Party of Billionaires
By Andy Kroll
| Mon Mar. 18, 2013 8:19 AM PDT
On Friday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took a turn on the main stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the groupthinky annual confab for the young and old of the conservative movement. Dressed in a red tie and white-collared blue dress shirt, McConnell attempted to debunk one of the more pernicious myths about the Republican Party. "Don't tell me Republicans are the party of millionaires and billionaires," he said, "when Obama's campaign arm is charging a half-million dollars for a meeting over near the White House." The GOP, he later added, is "not beholden to any special interests."
We're not the party of the rich, McConnell insisted; we're you.
You won't find any objections here to McConnell's jab at "Obama's campaign arm"—a reference, more specifically, to Organizing for Action (OFA), the big-money nonprofit formed out of Obama's reelection campaign. I've written plenty about OFA and its fundraising tactics, namely, reportedly offering donors and fundraisers access to the president and top administration officials in exchange for big bucks.
But let's go back to McConnell's claim that the GOP is not the party of millionaires or billionaires. For a thorough debunking, I defer to none other than Mitch McConnell.
Next week, McConnell and his wife, former Labor secretary Elaine Chao, will fly to Palm Beach, Florida, for a fundraiser at the home of millionaire John Castle, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. Then, after the Castles' fundraiser, Wilbur Ross (net worth $2.6 billion) and his wife, Hilary, will wine and dine McConnell at their house, which is so extravagant that it has its own name, Windsong. (So does the guest house: Windsong Too.) Tickets range from $1,000 to $5,000 for the night's events; to co-chair the event, you've got to pony up $15,000 to $30,000.
McConnell, of course, is in full campaign mode—even though Election Day 2014 is 18 months away and Kentucky Democrats have yet to settle on a challenger. (More on that here.) Indeed, McConnell's fundraising blitz began the very day the 2012 campaign season ended, with a $2,500-a-head dinner hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Since then, he's raised money at the home of another billionaire—New York City mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, in January—raised money at lobbying firms, and raised money at an event sponsored by the political action committees for Koch Industries, Home Depot, Capitol One, Amgen, and Delta Airlines—all multibillion-dollar corporations.
Fundraising is McConnell's specialty. As former Sen. Alan Simpson once observed, "When he asked for money, his eyes would shine like diamonds. He obviously loved it." Don't think for a moment McConnell will let his defense of the GOP get in the way of his chase for millionaires' and billionaires' money.
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Andy Kroll
Reporter
Andy Kroll is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Email him with tips and insights at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. Follow him on Twitter here. RSS | Twitter |
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Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:16 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Ashley Judd smear: Ethics watchdog group files complaint against McConnell
Morgan Whitaker, @morganwinn
8:19 PM on 04/11/2013
Melanie Sloan of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington joins Rev. Al Sharpton to explain why her organization has filed an ethics complaint against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the secretly taped strategy session leaked this week.
Did one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington break federal law? That’s the question the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is hoping to answer, leading the watchdog group to file a complaint asking the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate whether McConnell may have illegally used congressional staff time or resources for his reelection campaign.
CREW filed the complaint in response to campaign strategy meetings disclosed this week in secretly taped session.
“If Senator McConnell was misusing his office staff–who are paid for by our tax dollars–to engage in campaign work, that’s a violation of a Federal criminal law and Senate ethics rules and he should be held accountable for that,” the group’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan said on Thursday’s PoliticsNation.
The leaked recording seems to reveal that legislative aides helped to gather opposition research against possible challengers including Ashley Judd, who’s since announced she won’t run, and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. These staffers are permitted to work on campaigns during their free time, but not on the taxpayer dime, and breaking that rule would be an ethics violation.
CREW is focused on two people referred to by name on the tape, a Phil Maxson, who’s a legislative aid, and a Josh, who may be Josh Holmes. “Neither one of those people has been paid by his campaign committee, we checked the Federal Election Commission reports, but they both are on Senate staff,” says Sloan.
Sloan describes it as “unusual” for legislative aides rather than campaign staff to engage in opposition research. “It’s true that those aides could do this if that was on their free time, but they were spending a lot of time on this,” she said.
McConnell’s staff already called for an FBI investigation into how the recordings were obtained, complaining that he was subject to “Nixonian” style attacks. Sloan says the FBI should broaden its investigation to the content of the recording.
“Senator McConnell has been anxious for there to be an FBI investigation into this entire matter, and he’s got one, the FBI has started looking at it,” she said. “A full, thorough, and fair investigation would also look at whether Senator McConnell broke the law.” |
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Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:57 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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| Will any complaints be filed against the people that unlawfully recorded the meeting? I doubt it very much. McConnell has asked the FBI to investigate, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Holder tell them to ignore it. |
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I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:10 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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Fri Apr 12, 2013 7:23 am |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| HOLDER? what a joke of attorney general he is. Expecting anything remotely sensible from him or his boss barry o is a pipe dream. |
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"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:15 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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Sat Apr 13, 2013 6:47 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| All too often the links are no longer good and it is difficult to find the story. People want to read th story and make up their own mind. Some news links are no longer good within days. |
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Sat Apr 13, 2013 7:27 am |
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