Thread by @jaketapper

Every time I cross this bridge on I-95, I think about the fact that Senator Tydings was defeated in his 1950 re-election campaign at least partly because Senator Joe McCarthy and his team used smears and illegal financial transactions to beat him.

2/ Tydings had helmed a Senate subcommittee that investigated McCarthy’s accusations about Communists in the State Department. He called McCarthy’s charges “a fraud and a hoax.” McCarthy then got involved in the race to defeat Tydings.

3/ A bipartisan Senate Rules subcommittee later investigated the race, which Tydings lost. Per the Senate Historian, the subcommittee looked at “excessive campaign expenditures, massive out-of-state contributions unlisted in the required financial reports, and...

4/ “... attempts to eradicate records of questionable expenses.”

More here: senate.gov/artandhistory/…

5/ “A highly visible campaign activity involved the distribution of cheap tabloids, published under false statements of sponsorship and filled with half-truths and doctored photographs, that smeared the patriotism and loyalty of Millard Tydings.”

6/ Subcommittee conclusions aside, McCarthy was at the height of his power — he declined to testify before the subcommittee — and Tydings’ loss was allowed to stand.