Curtis Morrison, the political activist who secretly secorded a Mitch McConnell strategy session, told TPM on Monday that he suspects the founder of the super PAC Progress Kentucky “felt overwhelmed” after the group was tied to the recording.
Morrison said that he has no first-hand information about the demise of Progress Kentucky, which filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission at the end of July. The group effectively went dark in April, after Morrison was publicly tied to the recording incident. Morrison maintains that he was only ever a volunteer with the group, with “no pay or authority.”
“I officially resigned from that role on February 26, 2013, and haven’t spoken to Shawn Reilly, the executive director, since late March,” Morrison told TPM in an email. “I suspect he felt overwhelmed by the media piling on him for something he had nothing to do with, and so he threw in the towel. Not what I would have done, but can’t say I blame him either.”
Morrison, who has moved to California to study at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, said no one from Reilly to Karl Rove could have stopped him from passing the McConnell tape to Mother Jones.
“It’s not like he, Progress Kentucky, or American Crossroads for that matter, could have stopped me from making, much less releasing, that recording,” he wrote. “Although, technically, he did try the latter. But that’s irrelevant now.”
