Kentucky Democratic Official Now Implicates Progressive Group in McConnell Bugging Story

A Kentucky Democratic official is implicating a controversial progressive group in the possible bugging and/or recording of a strategy meeting involving Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell where he discussed opposition research of possible challenger Ashley Judd.

WFPL-Louisville reports:

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting.

Conway says neither the local nor the state Democratic party had any part in the incident.[...]

On Feb. 2, McConnell opened his campaign headquarters in the Watterson Office Park in Louisville and invited trusted GOP activists and select media outlets to an open house. The event lasted roughly two hours. Afterward, McConnell and several campaign advisors held a strategy session in an office meeting room.

Morrison and Reilly did not attend the open house, but they told Conway they arrived later and were able to hear the meeting from the hallway. [...]

“Apparently the gentlemen overheard the conversation and decided to record it with a phone or recording device they had in their pocket. Could've been an iPhone, could've been a Flip camera or something like that,” Conway

The Kentucky-based liberal group Progress Kentucky is no stranger to controversy for its unremitting attacks on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Having already been responsible for the racist attack on McConnell's wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the group allegedly has decided to try a new tack: Using private statements by McConnell and/or his aides to generate controversy.

McConnell had previously pointed a finger at Progress Kentucky as the organization responsible for the "bug," but had backed off prior to this announcement. Now, it seems McConnell's original suspicion may have been right.

Morrison and Reilly have not themselves spoken to the media on the subject of this bit of eavesdropping. Conway, however, has made a point of clarifying what happened both to WFPL and Fox News, so as to maintain plausible deniability on the part of the Kentucky Democratic party.

McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton isn't convinced. "They certainly weren't authorized to be there," he explained to Megyn Kelly on Fox. "I think what's even more disturbing are the tactics that the Left is prepared to resort to."

Watch both segments in the following clip from Fox: