“Be assured: My decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being reelected to Congress,” Bachmann said. “I have every confidence that if I ran, I would again defeat the individual who I defeated last year, who recently announced he is once again running.”

“And rest assured, this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff. It was clearly understood that compliance with all rules and regulations was an absolute necessity for my presidential campaign.”

The news that former Bush administration adviser Karl Rove is launching an effort to keep less-electable conservative Republicans from winning primaries has stirred up anger on the right.

The Conservative Victory Project, first reported on by the New York Times, is a direct response to the 2012 elections, when the National Republican Senatorial Committee stayed out of primaries and saw conservative candidates such as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lose winnable races.

“The Conservative Defeat Project is yet another example of the Republican establishment’s hostility toward its conservative base,” said Matt Hoskins of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a PAC launched by (but no longer affiliated with) former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

And let's not forget this interesting ponderance from our friend Karoli over at Crooks& Liars.

For nearly three years, national security leaks were few and far between. There were leaks from the White House, but most of them centered around domestic policy. Then John Boehner appointed Michele Bachmann to the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Please, no snickering. For 2011, Bachmann was preoccupied with her primary run at the GOP nomination. Few national security leaks occurred, and none of consequence.

Now we come to 2012, and since Mitt Romney won the nomination for President, there have been several major national security leaks, which the press questioned President Obama about at last week's press conference, and to which Michele Bachmann has responded.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to ask you about another issue that came up at the president's press conference on Friday, those national security leaks. We have two investigations now being ordered by the attorney general.

And the president said that he was offended by any suggestion that these leaks were for political purposes by his White House aides. Michele Bachmann responded to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Of course the White House leaked it and of course they did it, to make Obama look like he was tough on terror. I am offended that he lied to the American people this afternoon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: I see you smiling in response to Michele Bachmann. And I take the president's point that this was not for political…

AXELROD: As I often do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That this was not for political purposes. But if you look at these articles that were in The New York Times, on both the Stuxnet worm that went after the Iranian nuclear program, and the president's going over this so-called "kill list" for drones, in both cases they quote members of the president's national security team who were in the room.

So somebody who was in the room with the president was giving out some of this information or at least discussing classified information.

You know who else is privy to briefings like the ones about Stuxnet and the drone "kill list"? That's right. Michele Bachmann. Even Orange Man Boehner was concerned about her loose lips:

Bachmann may have justified Boehner’s faith in her abilities, but he wasn’t always so confident. When he appointed her to the committee last December, he made a special point of sitting Bachmann down to warn her that she could not let national secrets slip.

"While Rep. Bachmann's Islamaphobic fear mongering is a hit in conspiratorial right-wing circles, it's beneath the level of discourse Americans should expect from members of Congress," Betz said. "Members of the House Intelligence Committee are entrusted with classified information that affects the safety and security of all Americans. That information should not be in the hands of anyone with such a disregard for honesty, misunderstanding of national security and lack of respect for his or her fellow public servants."

Craig Holman, a government ethics lobbyist at liberal-leaning watchdog group Public Citizen, told Salon in May that Bachmann could face serious repercussions.

"It's not Watergate, or at least not yet, but these are a series of allegations that are each serious on their own, and when you put them all together, this could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann," he said.