Kevin McCarthy, Ill bet you cant make Louise Menschs head explode.
Challenge accepted!

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 17, 2017

The Washington Post is out tonight with another bombshell “exclusive”:

EXCLUSIVE House majority leader to colleagues in 2016: I think Putin pays Trump https://t.co/cGkuW8OAhR

— Post Politics (@postpolitics) May 17, 2017

Wow. This sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? More from WaPo:

A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Theres two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump, McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016 exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthys assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Here’s the thing, though: The transcript tells a somewhat different story:

Here's the WaPo transcript https://t.co/CFrcsu54Tf pic.twitter.com/PdM1KoY9s3

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) May 17, 2017

[laughter] https://t.co/VeR27hoFEO

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) May 17, 2017

That’s a lot of “laughter” for such a serious conversation …

This is true. The assertion was made out of context. Read the transcript, it's clear they were joking https://t.co/978Wbojx7q https://t.co/VnjzYG5vTQ

— Doug Andres (@DougAndres) May 17, 2017

Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck, who was quoted in the article as saying that the conversation “never happened,” took to Twitter to clarify:

Yes, this is dumb. He was just kidding. No one took it seriously. https://t.co/CguAAzid66

— Brendan Buck (@BrendanBuck) May 17, 2017

Goodness, I dont lie. Period. What was presented to me originally was far different than what they ultimately presented: an obvious joke.

— Brendan Buck (@BrendanBuck) May 17, 2017

I was not originally given quotes – just a crazy assertion that leaders believed Putin was paying Trump and trying to shield it.

— Brendan Buck (@BrendanBuck) May 17, 2017

Seems reasonable.

Ryan's spox initially said the conversation never happened, 100 percent. He didn't change his story until we told him there was a tape https://t.co/w9htnjpgaP

— Adam Entous (@adamentous) May 17, 2017

Gee, maybe he forgot about a jokey exchange filled with laughter, but would have remembered it if McCarthy was being serious? #spitballing https://t.co/vn9QX8UaMd

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 17, 2017

@jackshafer @elianayjohnson @AlexaMRomero Yes, but if someone fed a joke back to me as serious I wouldnt remember either until I worked out what they were talking about.

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) May 17, 2017

The stupid position => he's lying
The not-stupid position => he said "he'd never say that" b/c he knows his boss wouldn't seriously say that

— PoliMath (@politicalmath) May 17, 2017

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Read more: http://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2017/05/17/nothinggate-wapos-new-exclusive-trump-russia-scoop-comes-up-short/