Earlier this week, the Washington Post published a transcript of a GOP leadership meeting where Kevin McCarthy said he thought that “Putin pays Trump”. Wow.
When the participants in the conversation were contacted for comment on this, they denied such comments were made. Then when told there was an audio recording of the conversation, the denial was changed to “it was a joke” making a lie out of the earlier denial. I’ll assume that most reading this diary are familiar with this reporting, but if you need more background, read Rudyard's diary.
Here’s my contribution:
Many have speculated that Evan McMullin was the one who secretly recorded the conversation and gave it to the press. If you read this NYT Op-Ed from February, "Republicans, Protect the Nation" it just about confirms that McMullin was the leaker. I’ll quote a few key paragraphs to make my point. The whole Op-Ed is great and I encourage you to read it. McMullin is one of the few GOP putting America above his party. The emphasis is mine.
President Trump’s disturbing Russian connections present an acute danger to American national security. According to reports this week, Mr. Trump’s team maintained frequent contact with Russian officials, including senior intelligence officers, during the campaign. This led to concerns about possible collusion with one of America’s principal strategic adversaries as it tried to influence the election in Mr. Trump’s favor. On Monday, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was forced to resign after details of his communications with the Russian ambassador emerged.
...
As the presidential race wore on, some of those leaders began to see parallels between Russia’s disinformation operations in Ukraine and Europe and its activities in the United States. They were alarmed by the Kremlin-backed cable network RT America, which was running stories intended, they judged, to undermine Americans’ trust in democratic institutions and promote Mr. Trump’s candidacy. Deeply unsettled, the leaders discussed these concerns privately on several occasions I witnessed.
...
As Mr. Trump campaigned, his consistent affection for Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and apparent defense of Russian intervention in Ukraine raised further concerns. In December 2015, on “Morning Joe,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin, “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.” He also equated Mr. Putin’s murderous regime with the American government: “Our country does plenty of killing, also” — a remark he has repeated as president.
Suspect public comments like these led one senior Republican leader to dolefully inform his peers that he thought Mr. Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll, suggesting that Mr. Trump had been compromised by Russian intelligence. Other leaders were surprised by their colleague’s frank assessment, but did not dispute it.
If the last paragraph above is indeed the same conversation leaked to the Washington Post, McMullin characterized McCarthy’s “Putin pays Trump” comment as “doleful”. Since I don’t have a bigly score on my verbal SAT, I had to look that word up.
dole·ful
ˈdōlfəl/
adjective
-
expressing sorrow; mournful.
"a doleful look"
synonyms: mournful, woeful, sorrowful, sad, unhappy, depressed, gloomy, morose, melancholy, miserable, forlorn, wretched, woebegone, despondent, dejected, disconsolate, downcast, crestfallen, downhearted
I don’t think the audio has been released, but if/when it is, we can hopefully determine whether the comment was made jokingly, or it’s opposite, dolefully.
