Kevin McCarthy's Exit Came After Personal Threat Over Affair Allegations

Well I'll be damned! NOTHING surprises me coming from these utter hypocrites and utterly mean sicking Tea Baggies. AWFUL human beings. I am NO fan of Kevin McCarthy that is for sure but to hold an affair over his head by the extremist rightwingnuts of this putrid Republicon Party is DESPICABLE. But what can one expect of the Party of hypocrites and noxious anti-humans!  Only the fate of our nation they put at risk. Now the Party of many sins is floating Newt Gingrich to come in as speaker but Newt has had relationship problems of his own.  Hey, I know.  How about asking the Pope!

"Why not resign like Bob Livingston?”

Michael Calderone Senior Media Reporter, The Huffington Post

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Posted: 10/08/2015 07:15 PM EDT | Edited: 5 minutes ago

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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."

"No. No. Come on," said McCarthy. His decision to withdraw, he said, was to ensure that fellow GOP members didn't have a tough vote. "For us to unite, we probably need a fresh face," he said.

But the existence of the Baer email, passed to The Huffington Post by a source, shows that there were personal threats being made prior to McCarthy's abrupt announcement.

In the email, Baer linked to a Washington Examiner story published earlier Thursday with the headline: “Specter of sex scandal injected into GOP leadership race.” The article referenced Jones’ letter in the context of Speaker-elect Bob Livingston abruptly resigning in 1998 following a sex scandal.

Baer urged McCarthy to spare his family and congressional colleagues the ordeal of the allegations being raised, and suggested that concealing an affair would be a national security risk because of the possibility of extortion.

Few news organizations have touched the affair allegations, beyond the Drudge Report and conservative media. Charles Johnson, the conservative provocateur behind GotNews.com, reported them back in January. (Johnson, who is currently banned from Twitter, took a victory lap Thursday on Facebook.)

The rumors gained more traction in the last week in conservative circles, perhaps partly due to Baer’s multiple emails over that time, sent to a string of high-powered Republicans.

RedState editor-in-chief and radio host Erick Erickson wrote Thursday that someone sent links to blog posts about the alleged affair a few days ago to 91 people, including members of Congress and “highly influential conservatives outside Congress.” Erickson added that “there’s no evidence of the rumor being true.”

Erickson didn’t name the email sender, but The Huffington Post has confirmed it was Baer.

In Thursday’s post, Erickson wrote that a comment by Ellmers in The Hill, in the context of the rumors, further hyped the rumor mill:

Even some natural leadership allies such as Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) expressed doubts about promoting McCarthy to Speaker, a job second in line to the presidency.

“He has not spoken to me personally for my vote, and Jason Chaffetz has, so that’s where I am right now. At this point I will be casting a vote for Jason Chaffetz,” said Ellmers, who is facing a GOP primary challenger. “I can’t vote for someone who doesn’t ask for my vote.

“I’m apparently not high on his priority list,” she added.

 

 Major media outlets often are reluctant to amplify such claims and famously ignored rumors of John Edwards’ infidelity during the 2008 election. While cable news was all over McCarthy's decision to withdraw from the speaker's race on Thursday afternoon, no hosts or guests on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News explicitly referenced the rumors.

Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin seemed to allude to them during an MSNBC  appearance, noting “there’s a lot of speculation” that McCarthy’s decision had “more to do with things outside of his professional life.”

A couple hours later, Halperin cryptically tweeted: