Is Ukraine behind secret recording of Paul Ryan discussing Russia paying Donald Trump?
Last night an eye popping story appeared in the Washington Post which revealed that Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders had been caught on tape discussing alleged Russian payments to Donald Trump. This audio was recorded nearly a year ago and is just being released now, with Trump’s Russia scandal already in meltdown mode. But what’s most stunning is that the government of Ukraine might have been behind the secret recording.
I don’t expect the Washington Post to reveal its source that provided the recording, not should it. But there are two key clues within the article itself (link). The first is that it pinpoints the conversation between Ryan and other Republicans as having taken place immediately after they had met with the President of Ukraine, who warned them that Russia likes to fund puppet candidates around the world.
The second clue is that the byline location of the WaPo story incredibly reads “Kiev, Ukraine.” My interpretation of this is that the reporter in question may have had to travel to Kiev in order to hear the recording, or that in one way or another the source for the story is in Ukraine. This in turn leads to the question of how this recording came into existence to begin with. And that takes us back to the participants in that recorded conversation having just left a meeting with a Ukrainian delegation.
What exactly are we looking at here? Did the Ukrainians somehow plant a bug on one of the Republican Congressmen during the meeting? Is that how the recording was obtained? Did one of the Ukrainians sneak into the room where the Republicans were sharing their reactions to the meeting? Ukraine certainly has every motivation to fight back against any plot between Russia and the GOP. By the way, here’s another question: why is old recording being leaked now?
