As Andrea Ruth reported yesterday, House Republicans are questioning how the transcript of a private leadership meeting that took place last June in the office of Speaker Paul Ryan fell into the hands of the Washington Post. There was minor fallout from the transcript, which revealed that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had joked that then-candidate Donald Trump and McCarthy’s fellow GOP House Member Dana Rohrabacher were on Vladimir Putin’s payroll.

The bigger issue is who leaked the recording.

Security teams sweep congressional offices regularly and a recording device was never found, according to Axios sources. That has left Republican leadership with one high-profile source for the recording: Evan McMullin.

McMullin was present at the meeting in his role as a leadership aide. It was only a short time after the meeting that he himself became a presidential candidate. And, if Paul Ryan’s comment today is any indication, they seem pretty sure he’s the leaker.

Ryan on if @Evan_McMullin leaked the leadership tape: “I’m not going to speculate, but that’s the name most people – you hear about.”

— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) May 19, 2017

So, we are left to speculate if McMullin is indeed the leaker, and, if true, his motivation for doing so.