Did recording reveal McConnell lawbreaking?

Mother Jones: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit government watchdog, has asked the Senate ethics committee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe whether aides to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell improperly conducted political opposition research on federal government time.

A tape of a February McConnell campaign meeting that Mother Jones released Tuesday includes a section in which a McConnell aide states that McConnell’s “LAs”—congressional parlance for legislative assistants—helped gather background information on Ashley Judd, who was at the time considered a potential opponent in McConnell’s 2014 reelection race. The tape also refers to a “Josh” who worked on the research, which CREW’s complaint speculates might be Josh Holmes, McConnell’s congressional chief of staff.

Senate ethics rules forbid legislative assistants and other Senate employees from participating in political activities on government time. “In general, however, the ethics rules do not bar staffers from engaging in campaign activity provided they do it on their own time and do not involve government resources or property,” Tara Malloy, a government ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, told Mother Jones on Tuesday. You can read the relevant section of the ethics rules here. Bottom line: if McConnell’s aides did the research in their free time, they’re in the clear. But if they used government resources or worked on political matters on government time, they could be in trouble.

Not surprisingly, McConnell’s office says the staffers were working on their own time and it’s likely those staffers will agree. Of course, if they did campaign on the taxpayers’ dime, they’d deny it, since it’s just as criminal for them as for McConnell.

“McConnell should welcome a review of the tape,” CREW’s executive director Melanie Sloan says. “If McConnell thought it was so important for the FBI to investigate, the FBI should investigate everything about the incident. I think that’s hard to argue against. The tape certainly gives you probable cause to believe something improper occurred. It clearly merits investigation.”