Is the Republican establishment responsible for the Washington Post obtaining the audio of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s lewd comments about women in 2005? One person thinks so.

The son of the Moral Majority founder, Jerry Falwell, Jr., told WABC radio host Rita Cosby shortly after Sunday’s second presidential debate between Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, he believes House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., and other GOP leaders used the audio recording to get rid of their party’s standard bearer ahead of the November election.

“I think this whole tape…video tape thing was planned, I think it was timed, I think it might have even been a conspiracy among establishment Republicans who have known about it for weeks and who tried to time it to do the maximum damage to Donald Trump, and I just…I just think it just backfired on them,” said Falwell, an attorney who succeeded his father as president of Liberty University.

As noted by Breitbart, which cited an NBC News report, the speaker told members of the Republican House Conference on Monday he would no longer defend or campaign with Trump. The NBC report was based on a background conversation with a Ryan spokesman (note that the Speaker leaked his intentions to another establishment media source, like the audio recording was leaked to the Post). NBC was the owner of the Access Hollywood recording that the Post released on Friday. Trump used direct and foul language to discuss courtship and the manner in which women interact with celebrities.

While he was upset about the tape and how it was received by members of his family, Falwell told Cosby that his support for Trump remains intact. Cosby asked Falwell if what he was saying was conjecture; he replied that his observations were being made based on actual conversations he had with people who are familiar with the GOP conspirators.

“I just think some of the establishment Republicans – I’m not going to name any names, I’ve got some independent information, but I’m not going…I’m not going to reveal it on the air – but I think some of the establishment folks who reluctantly endorsed him had this planned all along as a way to slither out of the endorsement, and I think it backfired on them, and I’m glad to see that,” Falwell said.

If this is true and Ryan, along with other GOP establishment figures, actively plotted against their own party nominee, every one of them ought to resign. But of course they won’t, because as usual, they see Trump and his supporters as “the problem” with the country, not them and their Democrat co-conspirators who have bankrupted our country and have nearly destroyed its founding principles.

They still don’t understand that underhanded, dirty establishment political stunts like this are exactly why Trump beat out GOP establishment figures for the nomination. They still don’t get that they are the problem, not the solution.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

WashingtonPost.com

CNBC.com