Ashley Judd "Honored" By Buzz About Possible 2014 Senate Campaign

[badgers!]

Isn't she the "mute stones" bitch?

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McConnell campaign asks FBI to probe recording of private meeting on Ashley Judd

Liberal news website Mother Jones on Tuesday morning published audio from a private February discussion between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and aides about the Kentucky Republican's 2014 re-election campaign and potential Democratic challenger Ashley Judd.

The audio and transcripts—billed as a "secret tape" by Washington Bureau chief David Corn—show the McConnell camp discussing how to use the actress' religious beliefs and history of depression against her in a potential campaign.

Judd announced March 27 that she would not be a candidate for the Senate, citing family obligations.

McConnell's team believes Mother Jones obtained the tape illegally and has asked the FBI to investigate. Mother Jones released a statement Tuesday saying the tape is from a source who wished to remain anonymous and that the news outlet was not involved in making it.

"Senator McConnell’s campaign is working with the FBI and has notified the local U.S. Attorney in Louisville, per FBI request, about these recordings," Jesse Benton, McConnell's campaign manager, said in a statement. "Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell’s campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished presumably will be the subject of a criminal investigation.”

Benton added, "We’ve always said the Left would stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters are above and beyond."

Mother Jones said it gave McConnell's office a chance to respond to the tape before it was published but didn't hear back.

"We are still waiting for Sen. Mitch McConnell to comment on the substance of the story," Mother Jones' statement read. "It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation."
During the discussion of Judd's mental health on the tape, one individual said, "She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s."

The group also poked fun at a reference Judd made about St. Francis, a revered Catholic saint, and other religious statements.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Mother Jones also famously revealed secretly recorded comments made by Republican hopeful Mitt Romney, where he said 47 percent of Americans were dependent on government and refused to take "personal responsibility" for their lives. Romney later apologized.

McConnell campaign asks FBI to probe recording of private meeting on Ashley Judd

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Ashley Judd Slams Leaked Mitch McConnell Tapes as "Politics of Personal Destruction"

Ashley Judd's Senate campaign ended before it began when the actress decided last month not to run, but somehow she still wound up the subject of a recent political scandal with her would-be opponent, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. On Tuesday, April 9, Mother Jones released a recording of a private meeting among McConnell's aides, in which they talked and laughed about Judd's political ambitions, religious beliefs, and mental health (among other things).

At one point during the discussion, an aide brought up Judd's past bouts with depression as a possible political vulnerability. "She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced," the individual said. "I mean, it's been documented. Jesse [Benton, McConnell's campaign manager] can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s."

Judd, for her part, is fighting back. "This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington, D.C," a rep for the Missing star told Us Weekly in response to the leaked tapes. "We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter. Every day it becomes clearer how much we need change in Washington from this kind of rhetoric and actions."

The leaked recordings are now being investigated by the FBI, at the request of Senator McConnell, who accused opponents of engaging in "Watergate-era tactics" against him. "As you know, my wife's ethnicity was attacked by a left-wing group in Kentucky and apparently they also bugged my headquarters," he said during a news conference after the tapes had been released. (McConnell is married to Elaine Chao, the former Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush.) "So I think that pretty well sums up the way the political left is operating in Kentucky."

Judd, 44, put months of speculation about her political ambitions to rest last month when she announced on Twitter that she would not seek McConnell's Senate seat in Kentucky next year. "Dear Friends," she wrote in the first of a series of tweets explaining her decision. "Thank you for these months of remarkable support & encouragement, for your voices, exhortations & prayers...Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate."

"I have spoken to many Kentuckians over these last few months who expressed their desire for a fighter for the people & new leader," she went on. "While that won't be me at this time, I will continue to work as hard as I can to ensure the needs of Kentucky families are met by returning this Senate seat to whom it rightfully belongs: the people & their needs, dreams, and great potential."

Ashley Judd Slams Leaked Mitch McConnell Tapes as "Politics of Personal Destruction" - UsMagazine.com