RUSH: From the Huffing and Puffington Post: “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been hit with an ethics complaint after a leaked tape revealed he was discussing with aides how to take on potential opponent Ashley Judd. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has asked the Senate ethics committee and the FBI to investigate whether McConnell was having a discussion about potential Judd weaknesses — including her mental health and religion — on government time.”

Now, this is not an official ethics complaint. It is just the way it is portrayed. The headline: “Mitch McConnell Hit With Ethics Complaint Over Leaked Ashley Judd Tape.” No. That is not what’s happened. An activist group in Washington has asked the ethics committee to look into what McConnell did. It is they, the activist group, not the committee, which characterizes McConnell’s actions as criticizing her mental health and religion on government time. I mean, anybody can do this. I could ask on this program for the ethics committee to look into something, and then the Huffing and Puffington Post, if they wanted to, could claim that McConnell’s been hit with an ethics complaint from me.

The disingenuousness here is that the Huffing and Puffington Post, with their headline, makes it look like it’s an official ethics committee complaint when it isn’t. It’s just some bunch of whackos asking. And what they’re asking for is for McConnell to be investigated for an ethics lapse because he was talking about Ashley Judd on government time. That’s how ridiculous this is. But remember, the focus: low-information voters. I hate to tell you, but depending on how this gets tweeted and Facebook’ed, you’re gonna have a lot of people, at the end of the day, who are gonna believe the ethics committee is looking into Mitch McConnell and that they should, and that they ought to find him guilty. By about five o’clock this afternoon that ought to have happened.

On Twitter that will be flying all over the place, and there will be e-mails flying back and forth and phone calls to the ethics committee. “We heard you’re investigating McConnell for criticizing Ashley Judd on government time, and we agree, and we think you ought to find him guilty and you ought to punish him.” That’ll happen.

Now moments ago on Fox News, Megyn Kelly. She talked to Jefferson County (Kentucky) Democrat Party Executive Committee member Jacob Conway. And this guy Conway, a Democrat operative, claimed that the founders of a liberal group overheard the conversation that McConnell and his staff had in a hallway and taped it, that there wasn’t any wiretapping, and there wasn’t any bugging. So the question, and again, it’s a Jefferson County Democrat Party Executive Committee member Jacob Conway: “You ran into two men who founded a left-wing PAC that has been opposing Senator McConnell and his efforts for reelection. What did they tell you about this recording?”

CONWAY: They were there. I don’t know why they were at the grand opening of his campaign office, but they were there after the event had ended, and were in the hallway and they overheard the conversation going on which, you know, to me it was an extremely tacky conversation. They said very tasteless things, the McConnell campaign did, but it was a private conversation nonetheless, and when I guess they heard all of the tasteless and offensive and tacky things that the McConnell campaign was discussing, they decided to record it. And they told me about that later that day.

RUSH: Okay. I’m sorry to have to go back to this, but this now is being so distorted that somebody has to try to rein this in and keep it within the realm of common sense. You just now heard this Democrat super PAC executive committee activist Conway characterize McConnell’s conversations as tacky and tasteless and offensive. All they did was read from articles and her book. It was not things they made up. I feel like an idiot having to explain, ’cause you all understand it. You all know exactly what happened. James Taranto at the Best of the Web at the Wall Street Journal has a piece from yesterday: “Slinging Mud at Ashley Judd — A leftist magazine exposes a Hollywood actress as troubled and strange. Back in December a reader sent along a headline from a Kentucky paper describing Judd as ‘Still Mum’ on a prospective candidacy.” And a bunch of leftist magazines have published some of the oddball things that she has said.

So Taranto writes: “We hit Google in search of a suitable story to complete the gag, and did we ever hit pay dirt with this 2006 item from ContactMusic.com: ‘Campaigning actress ASHLEY JUDD refuses to “breed” with her racing star husband DARIO FRANCHITTI while there are starving children in the world. . . . She says, “It’s unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries.”‘” She’s also quoted as saying, “I freak out in airports. The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.”

All the McConnell people were doing — I mean, it’s the Democrats that are pushing the notion that Ashley Judd’s gonna run against McConnell. McConnell doesn’t want to sit by and let her take the seat. He’s gonna campaign against her. So his staff here, wherever they are, talking about a future campaign, potential campaign, and they’re simply bandying back and forth things that she has said. That’s all this was. So McConnell and his staff simply repeat the things that she herself has said and that leftist magazines have published, and that was just characterized on Fox as tacky and tasteless and offensive.

So this guy says there happened to be a couple people in the hallway who heard this, and they thought it was so tacky and so tasteless that they had to tape it. It reminds me of the grandparent couple that were out Christmas shopping in Florida. They were in their Cadillac. They were driving to the mall and they had their radio in the car that monitors cell phone frequencies, like you do. We all monitor cell phones on radios in our cars, and the grandparent couple overheard a conversation between Newt Gingrich and John Boehner. And they thought they were listening in on an historical moment, so they sent that tape, they actually had a tape recorder in their Cadillac, too. The Martins, that’s it, that was the grandparents.

The Martins, 75-years-old, a great bunch of people the Martins were, the grandparents, on a Christmas shopping tour. So they’re listening in on a cell phone radio, and happened to record it and send it off to a member of Congress, Jim Moran. And it sounds like the same thing happened here. A couple of really good Democrats just happened to be in the hallway where Mitch McConnell and his staff were saying horribly offensive and tacky things about Ashley Judd. This guy has come forward to say there wasn’t any bugging, they were just out there, and so Megyn Kelly said, “Mother Jones’ magazine has come out and said this was not a ‘Watergate style bugging’ which if it happened the way you’re saying these guys claimed it happened it wouldn’t be a Watergate style bugging. They actually did bug the offices as opposed to what you’re telling me.” These two guys, they just overheard a conversation in the hallway?

CONWAY: Now, from my understanding of the events at hand, in question, were not the story. It was not a bugging by, you know, by what you and I would consider that, you know, Nixonian bugging. That’s a little overdramatic, which our senior Senator has had a long flare for the overdramatic.

KELLY: Now the FBI is involved. Have they talked to you, Jacob?

CONWAY: No, ma’am. No, ma’am the FBI has not spoken to me. The only reason that I came forward with what I knew was I was trying to protect the Democratic Party. And, you know, I believe in our party’s values and I was doing what I thought was best for the party because I did not want their bad behavior, their poor mistake– I shouldn’t say bad behavior, their mistake, their lack of judgment to hurt our party’s efforts here in the state of Kentucky and in Jefferson County here in Louisville.

RUSH: Yeah, the only reason I came forward was I’m trying to protect the Democrat Party. This wasn’t a bugging. This was just some people who happened to overhear McConnell and his staff in the hallway, and they just happened to start recording it with their cell phones, no doubt, and they just happened to send that recording to David Corn, and I’m just trying to protect the Democrat Party’s interests here because this bad behavior and lack of judgment hurt our party’s efforts here in the state of Kentucky. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen. Meanwhile, McConnell, everybody thinks is up on ethics charges. (laughing) I don’t know, folks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, I really don’t mean to be adding to your confusion here, but I’m telling you: There are so many lies and so much distortion coming from the left, on all of this, gun control, on the budget, and now Mitch McConnell. But I have to tell you: The explanation that was just offered on Fox cannot possibly be true if what Mother Jones has published is true. This guy claims that this was a conversation in a hallway that was overheard between McConnell and his staff.

Yet the Mother Jones story describes McConnell and his staff as playing tape-recordings of her speeches. They were not standing in a corner. From the Mother Jones transcript: “Presenter: So you can see there she’s on the record supporting cap and trade. I mean clearly she’s a carpetbagger. This is coming from a carpetbagger himself so I can appreciate. So she hails here, as you can see,” and then they play the recording, and then Judd’s voice saying, “[S]o to me San Francisco is my, my American city home,” and then they talk some more, and they play another tape recording of her speeches.

They were not standing in a hallway.

They were somewhere playing tapes of her speeches. Now, maybe they were playing tapes of her speeches in the hallway where this guy happened to hear it, and there just happened to be a couple Democrat operatives standing nearby to be able to hear this. And what they were saying about her was “tacky” and distasteful and all that. So this Democrat Party activist on Fox who admittedly called them to protect the Democrat Party, his explanation doesn’t seem possible.

But since he’s called Fox and identified himself as a Democrat Party activist, sympathizer, and all that, it does now show the Democrat Party was involved, whether he intended for that to happen or not. The transcript from Mother Jones has the “presenter” playing tapes numerous times. So we’re supposed to believe now that they were playing this tape of Ashley Judd’s comments in a hallway. Here, the presenter says to them, “That obviously leads to another issue we’ll get to in a minute about her Tennessee links. Here’s just another sample, a wealth of material,” and they play another audio clip of Ashley Judd.

The presenter was the guy presenting the information to McConnell and the rest of his staff. The presenter is not named. So it sounds like it was a formal meeting. Reading the Mother Jones transcript of the story, it doesn’t seem possible that it could have happened the way this guy on Fox just described it, and that all this stuff was going on in a hallway. If it’s going on in a hallway, that means McConnell and his staff can see who’s standing next to ’em. They played at least six clips!

The presenter, whoever he was, played six “sound bites,” if you will, of Ashley Judd to McConnell and his staff — in a hallway, with a couple Democrats within earshot?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, another — I don’t know — clarification, correction, explanation. I’m being told now that the guy who called Fox meant to say that McConnell and his staff were in their office. It was the grand opening of a new campaign office, and McConnell and his staff were indeed in the office. The people who overheard McConnell and his staff theoretically, ostensibly saying all these tasteless things — and they weren’t saying anything. They were playing tapes of Ashley Judd saying it herself — they were outside in the hallway, overheard it. That is what I was supposed to have picked up from what the guy said on Fox. So I misunderstood.

The guy on Fox was not saying that McConnell and the boys were in the hallway. McConnell and the boys were in their office, but that the door was open, or it was cracked open, and the two innocent Democrats at the grand opening of McConnell’s office — the grand opening of Senate Minority Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s office and a couple of Democrat activists just happened to be at the grand opening, and they just happened to be in the hallway while McConnell and the boys are in the new office. Somehow they’re able to overhear all of this, and they are able to get a recording of it while they are in the hallway and McConnell’s in the office.

And that’s how they got it, and that’s what they sent to David Corn. They’re going to great lengths to have everybody understand that they didn’t wiretap that office. They’re doing everything they can to make sure that people understand that and they understand that McConnell and the boys were saying some really tasteless, offensive, and tacky things. Which they weren’t. They were simply listening to somebody play for them actual audio of Ashley Judd saying things. She has made speeches, by the way, where she has said all this stuff.

What Ashley Judd believes is not hidden. It’s not a mystery. It is well known. Everybody who is involved in politics and knows Ashley, she’s been off the rails for a long time. She has said really screwball stuff forever. They’re just trying to lay that off on McConnell and the boys having said it about her.

Now, back to McConnell for just a second. If this is so innocent, these two Democrat activists just happened to be outside Mitch McConnell’s office and just happened to overhear what’s going on in there and just happened to have the presence of mind to turn on a recording device on their computer and send it to David Corn, why not just come forward? Why not just come forward with their recording and their recording device and show us how it happened, tell us how it happened, demonstrate it. Let’s re-create it with a recording device just like that in the hallway. Let’s re-create the circumstance, show how it was done.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Okay, there’s a little bit more to impart to you on the Mitch McConnell story out of Kentucky. Jacob Conway, who was the guy who appeared with Megyn Kelly on Fox, said that the tape was made by two guys from Progress Kentucky. Who is Progress Kentucky? I will tell you. Progress Kentucky is the same group that race-baited McConnell’s Chinese wife. That’s who we’re talking about here. This innocent bunch of people just happened to be standing outside McConnell’s office while hearing McConnell say tasteless, mean things about the innocent and kind Ashley Judd, when none of that happened.

McConnell was in his office, but he was listening to tapes of Ashley Judd speak. There were eight different tapes played, eight different audio clips of Ashley Judd played. So this group, Progress Kentucky, the same group that race-baited McConnell’s wife, is the group that made the recording and sent it to David Corn. Now, Jacob Conway, the guy on Fox, is saying that the two guys from Progress Kentucky that make the tape are named Sean Riley and Curtis Morrison. They founded Progress Kentucky. It’s a Democrat political action committee. Progress Kentucky’s race baiting was so bad on Twitter that Twitter forced ’em to apologize and deleted their tweets. That’s who we’re talking about.

We’re talking about your average low rent Democrat activist today, progressive activist, who trolls and lurks on websites posting tweets and comments to blog posts that are guttural, they’re just filth. These were the people who supposedly were innocently standing there and listening to McConnell defame Ashley Judd with his staff and just happen to be fortunate enough to record it and send the tape to David Corn, Mother Corn — or Mother Jones, who are now being — Mother Corn, I like that, Mother Corn magazine. And now they’re being feted here and awarded great journalistic recognition for great, great investigative journalism in exposing the mean-spiritedness of Mitch McConnell.

“The meeting room door is next to the elevators on that floor. McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton has told multiple media outlets the door was shut and locked on Feb. 2. But the door has a vent at the bottom and a large gap underneath. ‘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,'” could have been a Samsung device, who knows. This is from the guy that was on Fox, the other Democrat, Conway.

Now, if they’re in an office and a door’s closed and they make an effort to hear what’s going on behind the closed door, that sounds close to wiretapping, to me. It doesn’t sound like a conversation in a hallway being overheard by two innocent little Democrat progressives who happened to just be in the middle of history and said, “You know what? This is big. We better record this and then send it over to Mother Corn.” It doesn’t sound like that at all. They didn’t listen closely enough to their attorneys. If they had to put their mic under that door, if they had to put that phone close to the gap or the vent in the door in order to hear what was going on, then that’s not a public conversation. And, see, that’s the point. They’re trying to make this sound like — this guy goes on Fox today, the heat’s being ratcheted up, this guy goes on Fox, trying to make it sound like McConnell and his staff are engaging in a public conversation overheard by two innocent Democrat Party activists, and they happened to have the presence of mind record it and send it over to Mother Corn, and, voila, that’s how we have the news. But that apparently is not what happened.

Now, the information I just gave you is from NPR Kentucky affiliate WFPL. I don’t know if Twitter forced them to apologize, delete their tweets. They might have been shamed into doing it by somebody else. So I can’t say for sure that Twitter forced these guys off, but they ended up apologizing for the just over the top demeaning racial tweets that they were sending out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

Three things. Number one, it was the Democrats who forced Ashley Judd out of that campaign in Kentucky. It was the Democrats who didn’t want her running; she had no chance of winning. Democrats.

Second: It’s against the law to record private conversations in Kentucky, no matter where or how they happen. It’s against the law. So I’ve got an idea. I think what the Feds should do is convene a grand jury and put David Corn under oath, like they did all those people in the Valerie Plame matter, but which, by the way, David Corn was involved in. So put him under oath, he’d appreciate it, and put these Democrats who happened to be just lurking outside McConnell’s office, put them under oath as well, and just insist.

If we had an active Republican Party, this is what they would be doing, push-back! Insist that Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor. Chase this thing down to the ends of the earth. I’m sure the media would agree with that, ahem. But that’s what happened to Scooter Libby. This is gonna be repositioned so that McConnell’s ending up as the criminal.