I am not naïve. I know that politics is a dirty business and that people will do unsavory things to help their chosen candidate win. But there are some things that so sicken me that I feel the urge to say the hell with it and go and become a hermit just to avoid reading about it.

One such case is the attempt by two Republicans to recruit gay Republicans to allege that Democratic contender Pete Buttigieg had sexually assaulted them. Fortunately that plot was exposed by Hunter Kelly, the person who was being used for the purpose

The young man who accused Mayor Pete Buttigieg of sexually assaulting him fully recanted the accusations on Tuesday, saying he was tricked, enticed and even intimidated into doing so by two of the most notorious smear merchants in politics.

In a new post on Facebook, Hunter Kelly recounted how a Medium post under his name, in which he said that he had been “raped” by Buttigieg, was written without his input and posted without his permission by Jacob Wohl.
…

For a week, Wohl had been attempting to find gay Republicans who would levy accusations against Buttigieg, according to at least one Republican who was on the receiving end of the pitch and recorded parts of it for The Daily Beast.
…

Kelly said that Wohl and his similarly infamous cohort, lobbyist Jack Burkman, booked him a flight from Michigan to Baltimore. From there, they drove to Burkman’s home in Arlington where Wohl showed him a draft of a statement detailing the bogus accusations against Buttigieg.

Kelly said he expressed concerns about the scheme but Wohl told him to sleep on it. When Kelly woke at around 11 in the morning, Wohl “was already dressed in a suit because he ‘can’t do a Monday if he isn’t in a suit’” and—of more significance—the fabricated statement had been posted to Medium, along with fake Twitter and Gmail accounts in Kelly’s name.

According to Kelly, Burkman tried to calm his nerves by claiming that he was a “‘star’ and people are eating me up.”

The trio, according to Kelly, ate Subway sandwiches, during which Kelly continued to express his regrets. Burkman and Wohl tried to calm him down by promising to purchase “any house I wanted” and insisting that his family would “get over it.”
….

Kelly said he was sorry he ever left Michigan.

“Jack Burkman may have promised me a lavish lifestyle, but at a price that would cost me the two most important things to me: honesty and integrity. Had I gone forward with this despicable scheme they concocted, I would have lost both of those things and became another one of their useless pawns.”

Will Wohl and Burkman be prosecuted? Surely such things are crimes?

This is a sign of what we can expect in the coming election. It is going to be hard to suppress the gag reflex.