In an insane abuse of power, the news editor for LEO Weekly, Joe Sonka, had the police called on him, and was threatened with arrest because Mitch McConnell was afraid that he would ask questions at a press conference.
According to the Courier-Journal:
The campaign called on the Louisville Metro Police to make sure that Sonka, who has been critical of McConnell in the past, from entering the conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn, on Crittenden Drive, where the event was held.
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Sonka said he was originally told that he couldn’t attend because there was limited space in the room. In fact, there were numerous empty chairs in the room.
Moments before the event, Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager, said that Sonka had been barred because other reporters had objected to Sonka asking questions. Benton refused to say who that reporter was.
This wasn’t the first time McConnell’s staff tried to keep Sonka out of an event. On February 14, before a campaign appearance at a Louisville business, Sonka was asked to leave but was allowed to return by the businesses’ owner.
“I think they were afraid I was going to ask him a question that he was going to have difficulty with,” Sonka said in an interview. Benton “said I could come in if I didn’t ask any questions, then when I told him I’d like to, he said he’d get the police to put me under arrest.”
Freedom of the press? Not so much in Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky. McConnell can’t run on his record, so he is forced to try to strong arm the press in order to prevent voters from finding out the truth about their senator.
Mitch McConnell is so desperate to keep his Senate seat that he called the police on a reporter because he was afraid that the journalist was going to ask him a question that he could not answer.
McConnell has spent over $10 million on ads that have gotten him absolutely nowhere. He is tied or trailing his Democratic opponent in every single poll of the state. His approval is lower than President Obama’s.
The last thing that all strongmen try to do before they fall is silence the media. Mitch McConnell is now trying to silence the media. Mitch McConnell has ruled over Kentucky politics for decades, but it appears that his reign might finally be coming to an end.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
