A (bottle blonde) political bombshell?
In 2009, The National Enquirer broke an explosive story about an up-and-coming North Carolina politician. Supporters of said politician dismissed the report saying: “Hey, it’s the Enquirer.”
(And where is John Edwards now?)
Now, another controversial media outlet — the web site GotNews.com — has another North Carolina politician in their sights. We reported earlier that Charles Johnson, the California-based publisher of GotNews.com, was looking to speak with former McCarthy and Ellmers staffers. Now, we know why.
Johnson is reporting allegations that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R-NC) have been involved in an extramarital affair:
Multiple sources within Bakersfield, North Carolina, & on Capitol Hill tell Gotnews.com that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Renee Ellmers (R-NC) have been carrying on a long-running affair since 2011.
The affair is something of an open secret in Washington, D.C. Reporters at other publications, lobbyists, congressional staffers of both parties all know about it. One staffer for a congressman describes it as the “biggest open secret” in D.C. A lobbyist describes Ellmers as a “social climber who has ingratiated herself” with McCarthy.
House leadership also knows about the affair. Speaker John Boehner reportedly told McCarthy to stop the affair once McCarthy was elected Majority Leader says a well placed congressional staffer. At least one leadership staffer doesn’t think the affair ended. “They are unusually close,” says the staffer who insists that the affair is going on. “It’s weird if he’s not [expletive] her.” […]
Ellmers, who was elected in 2010, has traveled with Kevin McCarthy throughout North Carolina on the campaign trail in 2014. McCarthy campaigned for Ellmers during her 2014 primary challenge with radio talk show host Frank Roche.
The New York Times discussed McCarthy and Ellmers’s working relationship in a 2011 article.
McCarthy, who can’t stand the sight of blood, appreciates the ex-nurse’s toughness. Ellmers is one of nine women in this high-testosterone freshman class and has to find her own way of being heard. She barraged McCarthy with e-mails and phone calls saying she saw little sense in the G.O.P. leadership’s decision in June to send the White House a message by bringing to the floor a ”clean” (or condition-free) debt ceiling and then resoundingly voting it down. Sometimes when Ellmers is talking to the whip and doesn’t think she’s getting through to him, she claps her hands loudly in front of his face. Sometimes McCarthy giggles and claps back.
The two Republicans travel together, campaign together, and support one another in conferences.
McCarthy has also made a number of trips to North Carolina to visit with Ellmers in North Carolina.
The trips coincide with when the affair is said to have occurred. […]
Calls and emails to Reps. Ellmers’s and McCarthy’s offices were unreturned.
Gotnews.com also reached out to Brent Ellmers, her husband, but hasn’t heard back. His number from his medical practice has been discontinued.
More to come…
More to come ???? That doesn’t sound good. For the sake of her husband and her son, we HOPE this is not true.
Apparently, this has been floating around Washington for a while. There was a cryptic reference to it several days ago on Red State by a couple of the front page writers, first in a article published and then in a comment.
Having worked around the General Assembly many years ago, I was aware then of a number of such relationships which were well known around the Puzzle Palace but there seemed to be a gentleman’s agreement not to put such information out in the public. Given the situations made public with Tillis’ staffers, I have no doubts that a lot of it still goes on, but most of it never gets to the public. I am sure Washington works much the same way.
Maybe one take away is that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones (including at legislation that lots of people care about).
One take away is that such ‘compromising positions’ are used for coercion and blackmail.
You hit the nail on the head. That’s how graft gets started.
Are saying blackmail of an inappropriate relationship possible explains Renee’s irrational voting patterns?
I was sorely disappointed that more of the sordid details of Tholl Rhoad Thom’s staffer escapades did not come out in the primary.
Good political sex scandals seem to work well. Of course not in Bill Clinton’s case. His popularity numbers are always high.
Hopefully a book will come out about the Thillis staffers and legislative sex. I getting all flush just thinking about it.
The Tillis staffers are bit players in the scheme of things in Puzzle Palace sleaze, even as sleazy and politically corrupt (the affairs were with lobbyists) as that was.
The long running sleaze that everyone around the legislature knew about, including the media who never breathed a word, involved a very major Democrat legislative leader who was a serial womanizer. The name of that legislative leader would be instantly recognizable. He left his wife at home during legislative sessions and had himself a grand old time in Raleigh. It was well known that lobbyists would often ingratiate themselves with him by setting him up with a woman for the night. One of his top staffers, who was from his home county, was also heavily involved in such activities. I always wondered if some of those lobbyists did not arrange a little recording to get even more leverage.
The ones who get revealed in public are the tip of the iceberg, like Rep. Mary Pegg (R-Forsyth) and a Democrat state Senator whose name I do not recall back in the late 70s or early 80s. Of course that one was very well known around the legislature before it came out in public, and both legislators abandoning their spouses and moving in together certainly helped it go public.
In Washington, DC there are sleazy arrangements which are well known but hushed up like Senator Thad Cochran (RINO-Miss.) having his live in mistress on his Senate payroll, like Wilbur Mills once did, and taking her with him on numerous junkets all over the world at taxpayer expense. It amazed me that some independent operatives thought they were helping primary challenger Chris McDaniel by getting a picture of Cochran’s wife in her nursing home. If any part of Cochran’s sleaze would have gotten traction, it was not about the wife, it was about the mistress being on his Senate payroll and travelling with him at taxpayer expense all over the world.
There’s enough to defeat Rep Ellmers based on her voting record and her support for the Chamber of Commerce at the expense of voters in her district. I think it would be a mistake to spend time on the rumor mill.
I agree with Common Sense. Renee’s political record is enough to oust her without resorting to the rumor mill.
Trying to use specific sex scandals in campaigns is foolish and most of the time does not work. It was even worse when Republicans in other races tried to use the Monica Lewinsky thing in their own races.
However, having it there in the background does weaken the opponent. The key is for the challenger to take the high road and talk about substantive issues, and you are right, there are indeed plenty of those to take Ellmers down in the primary. As the military would say, her voting record is a target rich environment for a GOP primary.
I agree that there is already enough to defeat her, and the challenger can/should take the high road.
However, assuming this is true (and I am inclined to believe it given her flip-flops, outright hostility and nastiness toward constituents, and bizarre behavior), it’s not the ‘affair’ part per se that is the problem. It’s the fact that she now has a secret that must be kept at all costs. She has compromised herself, put herself in a position where she is subject to blackmail. Does anyone think the tech titans or Chamber of Commerce, who’d feed their family members to rabid dogs, would not use this to extract votes favorable to their globalist agenda? And even if blackmail has not been employed against her, given this revelation, it makes sense that she is voting as McCarthy would have her vote, not as her constituents would have her vote. Either way it is a BIG problem.
What secret?? The mere fact that it is being discussed here voids the word “secret”. I would also wager that the blackmail has already taken place. Her flip-flops as of late are inexplicably extreme, even for her.
She is toast!
At least Congressman McCarthy is taller. Her short, little, husband only comes to maybe her armpit.
Now maybe we know why she is now for abortion after she was against it. Just sayin’… I know, I am a horrible person. I will save someone from pointing it out.
What a low blow. Would have expected more from you.
I stand in defense of “bottle blondes.” What in heaven’s name is wrong with a bottle blonde?
There are very few natural blondes in the world so many turn to the bottle. Brunettes and redheads do it as well. Let us embrace the bottle. Women sometimes feel the need to color their hair and that is fine!
I am against men using the bottle on their hair as it reeks of vanity. However, with women it is different. Women are beautiful and their desire to enhance their hair is only natural. Men should go with the flow. Go bald or go gray with honor and courage.
Let us hear no more talk about “bottle blondes.” The color of a lady’s hair should have no place in political discussion. We should be praising women for making the effort of looking appealing.
I say to all women: “Color your hair if you so desire. We men support you and commend you for your efforts to make yourselves more beautiful than you already are……if that is even possible.”
Furthermore women’s hair coloring products should be tax deductible
” . . . many turn to the bottle.”
Tell me about it. But, there’s no better way to survive the hideous Obama Regime, than with nostrums of booze and cigars, applied, religiously, and with a heavy hand.
(BTW, this also holds true in good times.)
*Cheers* . . . *Clink* . . . *Flicks long, lovely ash from my Padron.
P.S. ~ Jr, I dyed my hair jet black, once, in high school, and the effect was ghastly — as though I’d soaked my head in a bucket of black shoe polish.
Each dye-thickened hair was the identical shade of black — no variations or streaks — just dead-looking, wretched, matt black.
So was my scalp.
So, while I have turned to the bottle, it wasn’t the dye bottle.
Kind regards,
Naturally Silver
lol…my blonde friend use to say…
‘please speak slowly, Im a natural blonde’ ….
Let’s stay on topic here, we’re talking about a natural liar in an unnatural relationship. 🙂
It would seem she has the worst traits of both Clinton and Obama.
Her behavior last week moved me from the pro-Ellmers team to the anybody-but-Ellmers crowd.
Tired of defending her to tea party activists and other good folks. Now, I just hope people will find a GOOD primary opponent to run against her and not some wide-eyed nutjob.
A little off topic, but does anyone think this quote from my Congressman Robert Pittenger is a statement of support for Ellmers abortion bill opposition or just Pittenger attempting to be nice to his fellow NC Rep?
“I respect her concerns she had with the bill,” he said. “Renee is a pro-life member and certainly she is concerned about late-term abortions where the baby is fully formed and feels pain.”
I can’t post links from my phone so google the quote if you want the article.
It sounds like a circle the wagons ploy of one Obama Republican tried to cover for another Obama Republican. Pittenger has, like Ellmers, gone far left on immigration. They are both in the hip pocket of liberal billionaire and Obama bundler Mark Zuckerberg and his radical pro-amnesty bunch.
Everyone living in her district needs to ask her this one simple question and then post her response (if given). “Is the Muslim Brotherhood in North America (MB) (Ikhwan) our friend or foe? Please provide me with links to the source material that provides you with your view(s).”
Would this cause me to vote for someone else? No. It’s an issue for the Ellmers household, and I don’t live there. “IF” she were super nice, with a great personality, would I definitely vote for her? No. I voted for Frank in the primary. If she voted the way she talks during her campaign speeches, I’d vote for her. She doesn’t. That’s the bottom line. I don’t care what leadership, special interest groups, the media, or Floyd the barber thinks. She doesn’t vote right, and she’s got to go. All this other stuff just makes it easier.
What is most concerning about her relationship with McCarthy is his political influence with her. McCarthy’s voting record is even farther to the left than Ellmers’. McCarthy is far and away the most liberal member of the GOP leadership.
In a related story, I have it on good authority, that Kevin and Renee were in the bathroom that the New England Ball Boy took the AFC Championship footballs into before the start of the game. They were only able to deflate 11 of the 12 footballs in 90 seconds, because Renee kept clapping her hands in the ball boy’s face.
Film at 11.
You are spot on, as usual Raphael. Politics makes strange bedfellows – literally in this case. If this relationship is proven to be true, she should step down.