Shades of Nixon, Watergate and tapes

How did Mother Jones obtain McConnell tape?

By Erik Wemple, WashPost, Updated: April 9, 2013

Mitch McConnell’s political operation today grew in the estimation of the Erik Wemple Blog, thanks to Mother Jones magazine. The lefty outlet scored a secret audio recording of a Feb. 2 strategy session by the team seeking to reelect McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who leads his party in the Senate. The recording and its transcript detail the bare-knuckled yet fair-game attacks that the McConnell operation was prepping for possible opponents, including actor Ashley Judd (who has since declared she won’t run) and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. As the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has written, there’s nothing striking here.

The issue is not the McConnell campaign, its ethics or its viability; it’s all about how this tape came about.

Who recorded it? McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton suggests subterfuge: “We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters is above and beyond.” CNN is reporting that the McConnell camp “is working with” the FBI on the matter.

Mother Jones, meanwhile, contends that a less-exciting process netted the recording (Disclosure: My wife works at Mother Jones):

We are still waiting for Sen. Mitch McConnell to comment on the substance of the story. Before posting this article, 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 the tape by a source who wished to remain anonymous. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but we published a story on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that.

(More here.)