REPORT: DOJ gives 'journalist' status to liberal who bugged Mitch McConnell's office

◼ Justice Department prosecutors in Washington are now part of a high-profile criminal investigation into the secret taping at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign headquarters in Louisville. - Politico

The furor over Morrison’s actions began after an April report in Mother Jones magazine about the McConnell campaign meeting. Morrison, who worked for a liberal group called Progress Kentucky, has admitted that he taped the private conversation between McConnell and his campaign aides Feb. 2, including discussion of potential attack lines against actress Ashley Judd, who was considering running against McConnell.

Following Mother Jones’s publication of Morrison’s recording, McConnell suggested Democrats were acting in “Nixonian fashion” by “bugging” his campaign headquarters. The FBI quickly became involved in the case, interviewing McConnell and his staff. Morrison was fired from his job as a freelance reporter for the publication Insider Louisville.

Sources familiar with the McConnell case said the heightened involvement of Main Justice — as the Justice Department headquarters is known — appears to have slowed down what had been a rapidly moving investigation.