As Michael Calderone reports for Huffington Post, the only question was whether the Beltway media would be successful in helping Kevin McCarthy cover up rumors he’s cheated on his wife with a fellow Republican member of Congress:
In the hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) abruptly withdrew his candidacy to be the next speaker of the House, he was sent an email from a conservative activist threatening to expose an alleged affair with a colleague. The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?”
The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media sites have suggested is tied romantically to McCarthy.
McCarthy has brushed off the affair allegation. After announcing that he would not seek the speaker’s post on Thursday, he was asked about Wednesday’s cryptic letter from Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), which asked that “any candidate for speaker of the House, majority leader, and majority whip withdraw himself from the leadership election if there are any misdeeds he has committed since joining Congress that will embarrass himself, the Republican conference, and the House of Representatives if they become public.”
In 1998, Speaker-elect Bob Livingston quit Congress because Larry Flynt was about to reveal he cheated on his wife at the same time House Republicans were trying to impeach President Clinton for cheating on his wife. Add in former Speakers Newt Gingrich (cheated on & divorced first wife while she battled cancer) and Dennis Hastert (accused of molesting boy while he was a high school teacher) and the record of “family values” House Republicans in recent years is sordid and scandalous.
In the big picture, what’s most outrageous is that every Hillary Clinton email is analyzed on-air in hope of finding some shred of scandal, but those same reporters have been covering up rumors of two Republicans possibly cheating on their spouses with each other. “Liberal” media? If media actively had a thumb on the scale for Republicans, how would that look different from what’s going on now?
He legitimately didn’t have the 218 votes, and while he would win a majority of his caucus, he would be persistently subject to confidence votes the entire time he ran the House, and he decided it just wasn’t worth it. Plus, he is staying on as majority leader and not resigning from Congress.
The fact that he is being linked to Renne Ellmers who is a target for far right primary opposition, for her heresy on abortion (how dare she let rape victims access reproductive health care, what a RINO!) leads me to think it’s an attempt to smear two “RINOs” by the Red State crowd.
that the allegations of the affair came from hacked Wikipedia pages, which were altered from an IP address, 216.81.81.85, on Thursday. which belongs to the Springfield, VA office of Dept. of Health and Human services.
That is kind of specific for a random rumor, IMO.
The administration has a tremendous smear machine – I just can’t figure out if they want an unmanageable Speaker to make the President look better, or to try to have a more moderate speaker to actually accomplish something.
Isn’t “edit” the more accurate term? The point of wikipedia pages is that users are encouraged to change them. Do we here at BMG “hack” the site when we add information that we acquire? Are you suggesting that every employee at the Springfield, VA office of the Dept of Health and Human Services is part of some vast administration conspiracy?
It looks to me as though somebody got wind of this and decided to share it.
I agree that some smearing might be happening — I wonder if that smearing is coming from a bit closer to home than Springfield, VA.
The Obama conspiracy theory portion of that comment is patently absurd. If anything, the anti-choice elements of your side seem to be going out of their way to nail Ellmers with something for sometime, and also seem to be happy to take down anyone who doesn’t agree with them 100%. Very Stalinist if you ask me.
I don’t doubt that Ms. Ellmers is being targeted by the far-right. As far as I can tell, they go after just about everybody with a room-temperature IQ or higher. On the other hand, various sources report that “rumors” about a “romantic relationship” between Ms. Ellmers and Mr. McCarthy have been circulating in Republican circles for years.
Both parties vigorously deny the rumors. Are you saying that you don’t believe that Mr. McCarthy has been having an extra-marital affair with Ms. Ellmers, or are you not buying the source of today’s rumor?
I ask because Bob Livingston was taken down by Larry Flynt. Mr. Flynt is about as unsavory (and un-trustworthy) as sources get. His motives were transparently self-serving — he offered to pay a bounty for dirt.
Nevertheless, it appears that Mr. Flynt’s vulgar approach delivered the goods.
And those are the folks that have been trying to link these two, unsuccessfully, for the past year or so due to their insufficient conservatism.
The latter I guess, and the rather vulgar sexist way these articles go about linking them. Some of these go back a year or two, conincidentally not long after Ellmers came out against their latest attempt to force rape victims to have their rapists kids. One of them said ‘he spends so much time with her, he’s gotta be fucking her’, as if the only thing women in Congress were good for is boinking.
Bob Livingston resigned his seat, he didn’t just step away from the leadership. My guess is the folks that want McCarthy out would have real proof and torpedo him from his current leadership position to let one of their House Freedom Caucus members into it. Now if either he or Ellmers resigns it means it was probably true, but they are both running for re-election and he is staying on as Majority Leader.
what happened from 8am when McCarthy announced his candidacy to GOP conference colleagues and 12 noon when he changed his mind and withdrew ?
He said in that time he had “heard from constituents”. Could that be an oblique reference to the email threatening him to step down or risk scandal ?
Woodward and Bernstein wannabes are all over this story for the scoop. It’s only a matter of time before the truth is known.
Fred Rich LaRiccia