{"id":1186237,"date":"2022-01-04T08:04:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T13:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1186237"},"modified":"2022-01-04T08:05:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T13:05:03","slug":"exclusive-mitch-mcconnell-led-effort-to-trash-bob-dole-aides-career-over-peripheral-tie-to-january-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-mitch-mcconnell-led-effort-to-trash-bob-dole-aides-career-over-peripheral-tie-to-january-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Mitch McConnell Led Effort to Trash Bob Dole Aide\u2019s Career over Peripheral Tie to January 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-mitch-mcconnell-led-effort-to-trash-bob-dole-aides-career-over-peripheral-tie-to-january-6%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1186237&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell personally led an effort to damage the career of a longtime aide to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole over the aide\u2019s peripheral and obscure link to January 6, Breitbart News has learned.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Unes, a longtime Dole aide who runs a Washington-based event planning company called Event Strategies, Inc., had his contract for Bob Dole\u2019s funeral sabotaged after it became public that the company had been contracted to put on the event at the White House ellipsis on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Text messages between a senior official at the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and the former Dole aide in question obtained by Breitbart News finger McConnell as the person responsible for targeting him and his business. The CEO of the foundation also walked back previous comments he made to the <em>New York Times<\/em> about the aide \u2014 inaccurate statements that the text messages imply were made under pressure from McConnell\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>When the connection between Unes and the Jan. 6 rally came out publicly in press reports, McConnell staffers raised issue with him planning the funeral with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, questioning whether it would be proper for Unes to be involved in event planning for another function happening in the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19349594\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/bob-dole-funeral-family-dc-dec-10-2021-getty.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19349594\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/bob-dole-funeral-family-dc-dec-10-2021-getty.jpg\" alt=\"WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 10: Elizabeth Dole and Robin Dole walk alongside a military honor guard as they carry the casket of the late former Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) at the conclusion of his funeral service at Washington National Cathedral on December 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. Dole, a veteran who was severely injured in World War II, was a Republican Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1996. He ran for president three times and became the Republican nominee for president in 1996. (Photo by Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elizabeth Dole and Robin Dole walk alongside a military honor guard as they carry the casket of the late former Senator Robert Dole (R-KS) at the conclusion of his funeral service at Washington National Cathedral on December 10, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>When Dole died, McConnell\u2019s team kicked into higher gear on this, pressuring the Dole Foundation to issue a public statement distancing the former Senate leader\u2019s funeral from Unes \u2014 despite the planning having been in the works for over a decade.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>The effort was made public in the <em>New York Times<\/em>, threatening business prospects for Unes and his company.<\/p>\n<p>While some elements of this story have appeared previously in the <em>New York Times<\/em> and on Tucker Carlson\u2019s Fox News program among other outlets, what transpired over the course of the many months between the events of Jan. 6 and Dole\u2019s passing and funeral have not yet been fully reported until now.<\/p>\n<p>In the <em>Times<\/em> on December 8, reporters Michael Shear, Luke Broadwater, and Maggie Haberman reported, \u201cEvent Planner Working on Bob Dole\u2019s Funeral Is Let Go for Jan. 6 Ties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the story, they wrote that the Elizabeth Dole Foundation \u201chas cut ties with\u201d Unes \u201cafter the Senate\u2019s top Republican complained that Mr. Unes had been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select committee for his work organizing the rally before that day\u2019s attacks.\u201d The piece quoted Dole Foundation CEO Steve Schwab on the matter and noted that McConnell\u2019s aides had \u201craised the issue\u201d of Unes\u2019s January 6 Committee subpoena with the Dole Foundation in the days following Bob Dole\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n<p>More from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/12\/08\/us\/politics\/dole-funeral-planner-capitol-riot.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">original<\/a> <em>Times<\/em> story:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A spokesman for the foundation said Mr. Unes had been a volunteer member of the team planning the memorial events in Washington this week, including when Mr. Dole lies in state at the Capitol on Thursday and the funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Dole \u2014 the Republican presidential nominee in 1996, a decorated war veteran and a native of Kansas who served for 27 years in the Senate and eight years in the House \u2014 died Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Schwab, the chief executive of the foundation, said in a statement that Mr. Unes was no longer working on the memorial events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis evening, I made Senator Elizabeth Dole aware of Mr. Unes\u2019s alleged involvement in the events of Jan. 6, 2021,\u201d Mr. Schwab said, referring to Mr. Dole\u2019s widow, a former lawmaker from North Carolina. \u201cSenator Dole was previously unaware of his participation and terminated his volunteer role.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>However, Schwab was mistaken on multiple points in his statement to the <em>Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThirteen years ago, the Dole family asked me to take over planning and logistics for Senator Bob Dole\u2019s funeral. The night before memorial services were to begin, Steve Schwab, Chief Executive of the Dole Foundation, alerted me that the <em>New York Times<\/em> was running a story that Senator Mitch McConnell was demanding my termination from all funeral activities because I had received an informational fact-finding subpoena along with hundreds of other organizations and individuals from the January 6th commission,\u201d Unes said in a statement to Breitbart News. \u201cUnfortunately, a statement that Mr. Schwab issued to the <em>New York Times<\/em> had two inaccuracies. First, the statement implied that I had failed to disclose to Senator Elizabeth Dole\u2019s staff that I had received a subpoena. That is incorrect, I alerted the staff on three occasions in the past eleven months, offering to resign each time. Second, the statement said I was terminated, when in fact I had voluntarily resigned earlier that night.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_15412117\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2021\/01\/wi\/ap\/13\/congress-electoral-college-image-video-senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-of-ky-speaks-senate.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-15412117\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/congress-electoral-college-image-video-senate-majority-leader-mitch-mcconnell-of-ky-speaks-senate-1024x577-1.jpg\" alt=\"The Associated Press\" width=\"658\" height=\"371\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">In this image from video, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks as the Senate reconvenes after protesters stormed into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Senate Television via AP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Schwab, while declining to comment further, did admit in a written statement to Breitbart News that he got these details wrong in his statement to the <em>Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was misinformed when I responded to a <em>New York Times<\/em>\u2018 inquiry,\u201d Schwab told Breitbart News in a broader statement from the Dole Foundation that noted he would like to \u201ccorrect the record\u201d on what he got wrong on this matter in his original comments to the <em>Times<\/em>. \u201cWe have since learned that Tim Unes told a member of the Dole planning group about his Congressional subpoena and offered to resign from the effort in order to avoid distraction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The official statement from the Dole Foundation also notes that Elizabeth Dole appreciates Unes, and thanks him for his service to the Doles for more than three decades.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cElizabeth Dole thanks Tim Unes, founder of Event Stategies, who as a volunteer helped coordinate years of planning for Sen Bob Dole\u2019s memorial service and tributes,\u201d the Dole Foundation statement said. \u201cTim served the Doles on and off for more than 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The statement also said: \u201cWe thank Tim Unes for his commitment to the family, and we appreciate the outpouring of support, prayers, and love from across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Text messages between Mari Maseng Will and Unes obtained by Breitbart News \u2014 sent in the immediate aftermath of the <em>Times<\/em> story \u2014 show that the Dole Foundation official viewed McConnell and his team as the reason why this all happened. Will, the White House Communications Director under President Ronald Reagan and the wife of columnist George Will, is now a communications aide for the Dole Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor what it\u2019s worth, I think it\u2019s clear from the story that this is all McConnell\u2019s doing, which it is,\u201d Will told Unes after the <em>New York Times<\/em> printed its piece. \u201cFrom my understanding, it was a demand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Will declined to comment for this article but did not dispute the authenticity of those text messages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want you to know how sorry I am that this happened and the way it happened,\u201d Will wrote in her texts to Unes. \u201cI hold you in the greatest respect. Your vision, talent and leadership are making this week the great tribute Bob Dole deserved and one that I hope will inspire our nation, which needs it\u2026. I know Bob is looking down on all this and is very grateful for you. You were his great and loyal friend to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In reply, Unes asked Will to help get the Dole Foundation to fix the erroneous statements that were made, and she says she will push to do so \u2014 as Schwab eventually did here in his statement to Breitbart News \u2014 and noted that McConnell was behind the whole thing.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the text messages, McConnell\u2019s office formally declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n<p>Unes, sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News, had regularly kept the Dole Foundation key players in the loop on everything related to his January 6 matters all the way back to that day and throughout the year \u2014 and was never actually going to be in the Capitol for the services. Once he received a subpoena from the committee in September, Unes recused himself from the matter and let others at his company handle the Dole funeral events.<\/p>\n<p>In a follow-up story to the <em>Times<\/em> piece, the <em>Hill<\/em> newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/585068-jan-6-ties-cost-bob-dole-funeral-planner-job-report?rl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">began<\/a> reaching out to Unes\u2019s company\u2019s clients and asking for reaction to the news \u2014 getting a statement back from at least one, the AARP:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A spokesperson for AARP said in a statement to The Hill that Unes worked on one project for the organization, 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe firm has not done any work since and does not currently work for us. AARP has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Event Strategies to remove our name from their website,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>McConnell has a longtime reputation for ruthlessness inside the GOP, and when some Republicans and conservatives have challenged him in the past, he has scorched the earth around them. Facing right-wing challengers down is nothing new to McConnell, either. Over the past decade-plus, such threats like rambunctious outsider primary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2017\/11\/04\/mcdaniel-blasts-mcconnell-floating-daca-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">challengers<\/a> to rank-and-file Republicans who have served as McConnell\u2019s praetorian guard have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2014\/06\/06\/mcconnell-goes-all-in-for-cochran\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">come and gone<\/a>. Other threats from top GOP donors have quietly subsided while the longtime GOP senate leader has held off rumblings from inside his conference even as rank-and-file Republicans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2021\/12\/02\/congress-strikes-deal-on-stop-gap-funding-through-february\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/clips\/2021\/02\/15\/sen-ron-johnson-on-mcconnells-anti-trump-speech-our-leader-does-not-reflect-our-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">time<\/a> to time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rickscott.senate.gov\/2021\/12\/sen-rick-scott-don-t-lift-the-debt-limit-stop-reckless-spending-balance-the-budget\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">grown<\/a> uneasy with McConnell\u2019s legislative strategies. Typically, McConnell has fallen back on conservative successes with confirming judges \u2014 especially the three U.S. Supreme Court Justices confirmed during the Trump administration \u2014 as a failsafe to keep the base in line.<\/p>\n<p>In so doing, McConnell has repeatedly survived during a decade that has seen turmoil at the highest levels of the Republican Party. In just the past few years, John Boehner was forced to resign the speakership a little over a year after the then-House GOP leader Eric Cantor lost a primary to conservative challenger Dave Brat \u2014 and then later Paul Ryan, the 2012 vice presidential candidate, lasted only a term and a half as speaker. The rapid takeover of the GOP by forces aligned with Trump and the base, and a rejection of the old establishment backslapping dealmaking ways of a bygone era, has for now spared McConnell that same brutal fate of so many other establishment Republicans like him.<\/p>\n<p>But in recent months, Trump and forces aligned with him have escalated a war of words with McConnell, with Trump calling the Senate GOP leader the \u201cbroken old crow\u201d and lambasting him whenever he possibly can while Trump-aligned forces and candidates have worked to wrest control of the party from him. Leading GOP Senate candidates across the country, like front-running former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and Alaska\u2019s Kelly Tshibaka, have also joined the fray publicly pushing for a new GOP leader in the Senate. What many consider McConnell\u2019s recent mishandling of the debt ceiling negotiations \u2014 he drew a red line against allowing GOP votes to help Biden hike the nation\u2019s borrowing limit, then failed to hold that line and instead caved providing enough votes to help the Democrat-controlled Senate clear legislation \u2014 has emboldened his critics even more so.<\/p>\n<p>In his segment on this incident on his program, Fox\u2019s Carlson called McConnell \u201can instrument of the left\u201d and said that McConnell was trying to \u201cdestroy Tim Unes\u2019s life\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Technically, Mitch McConnell is the Republican leader in the United States Senate. <\/p>\n<p>But in real life, on the issues that matter, Mitch McConnell is an instrument of the left. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EUw8H3OUBT\">pic.twitter.com\/EUw8H3OUBT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TuckerCarlson\/status\/1469124317103407107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 10, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was similarly upset about what McConnell did here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is so typical of the Republican Party\u2019s national leaders to leave its allies to suffer in shame,\u201d Schlapp, a native Kansan who was close with Bob Dole, told Breitbart News. \u201cI learned this first hand when I was persecuted by various investigations for the crime of working for Bush\/Cheney. Scooter Libby was prosecuted for aggressively fighting for the goals of that administration. Now, Liz Cheney is pursuing the next generation of political victims for working for Trump and exposing the effort to villainize voter ID. Bob Dole knew of Tim\u2019s role in the peaceful rally on 1\/6. He stood by Tim and Tim spent years planning Sen. Dole\u2019s final goodbye. If GOP senators played a role in canceling Tim they are no better than the Republicans who voted for impeachment. I talked with Sen. Dole in the last few months. He knew that America was in a fight to defeat fascism in America. He was in the battle. He stood by Trump and he stood by Tim. We cannot allow people like Tim to be canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell personally led an effort to damage the career of a longtime aide to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole over the aide\u2019s peripheral and obscure &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1186237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}