HA! HA! SAID THE CLOWN, HAS THE KING LOST HIS CROWN?

My favorite conspiracy theorists are looking better every day. Just sayin’.

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy are apparently preparing for careers in standup comedy when the poop hits the propeller.

On June 15 last year, a month before the Republican Convention, Ryan and McCarthy met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladi¬mir Groysman, who told them how Russia financed “populist” politicians in order to undermine European democracies. Later that day, Ryan and McCarthy were discussing that topic in what they thought was a secret meeting with other Republican leaders.

At one point, McCarthy said “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” When some Republicans laughed, McCarthy replied, “Swear to God.” Ryan immediately aborted the conversation and swore everyone to secrecy.

But someone recorded that meeting, and somehow the recording wound up in the hands of the Washington Post this week. The Post asked Ryan’s spokesman Brendan Buck for a comment, and he said “That never happened.” Then the Post dropped the bombshell – dude, we have a recording. Oh. Well, in that case, it was “clearly an attempt at humor.” Yeah, a joke, that’s the ticket.

I wonder how the Post came by this particular recording. Two months ago (March 21), I wrote this: “I’ve read speculation that Trump will fire FBI Director Comey in the near future. That would be really stupid, but really stupid is always in play where Donald Trump is concerned. It’s hard to imagine a more counterproductive course of action, though. It would trigger comparisons to Watergate’s Saturday Night Massacre; it would be read as a tacit admission that Trump was afraid of what an investigation might reveal; and perhaps most seriously, it would really piss off the FBI.”

Maybe the FBI took an interest in Ryan’s and McCarthy’s meeting with the Ukrainian Prime Minister and decided to eavesdrop. But the Russians and Ukrainians would also have been interested. The Post story is datelined Kiev, which is kind of interesting.

But the real question is how – apart from embarrassing Congressional Republican leadership, which is a worthy goal all by itself – this story fits into the greater scandal. At the very least, it proves that well before their convention, House Republican leadership had been warned that Russia would try to influence the election, and that there was reason to believe that Trump was Putin’s candidate. Rather than telling the public what they knew and/or suspected, man of principle Paul Ryan told everyone to just shut up.

If you’re partial to conspiracy theories, you’d suspect that there are other tapes out there with embarrassing – or maybe incriminating – information about prominent Republicans. I have a feeling we’ll find out soon.