It should be remembered that John McCain hired a known paid advocate for Syria, Elizabeth O’Bagy, as part of his staff after she was fired by The Institute For The Study of War for lying about her professional credentials.   A year ago we wrote:

 … So knowing she’s a liar, knowing that she’s in bed with the “rebels”, that she put out conflicting accounts, that she whitewashed the “rebels” into a more “moderate” force, this woman is worthy, according to John McCain, of being hired to his staff.   This is so unbelievable, it makes one think that there is some greater personal underlying reason operating here….

As you review this article it’s wise to keep in mind that Elizabeth O’Bagy was the one who set up the John McCain visit to Syria.

(Via Breitbart) Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his aides swear the Syrian “rebels” he was pictured last year with weren’t ISIS members or supporters, and the mainstream media is by and large buying the 2008 GOP presidential nominee’s story.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has endured brutal criticism—media fact checkers, reporters, and political figures have shredded him—for questioning just who McCain posed with.
But a closer look at the situation tells perhaps a different story than McCain’s office or the mainstream media have pushed.
The criticism of McCain centers around how the Arizona senator met with Syrian rebel leaders in May 2013 when he visited the country. McCain posed for photographs with those people, and since then rumors have sprouted up across the Internet that he met with ISIS or some other terrorist kidnappers or nefarious forces.
“The people in the pictures with Senator McCain in Syria included General Salim Idris, then-Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Command of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Mouaz Moustafa, the Executive Director of the DC-based Syrian Emergency Task Force (which supports the moderate opposition and helped arrange some of the trip), and fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” McCain’s spokesman Brian Rogers told Breitbart News.
Rogers said that the senator and his team aren’t naming the “fighters and commanders from the Northern Storm Brigade, a FSA-aligned group,” because “ISIS actually threatened to kill them all, and we don’t want to put their lives at risk.” Rogers provided Breitbart News with a link to the ISIS threat to those fighters.
“ISIS targeted the Northern Storm because ISIS considers them apostates and because Northern Storm met with Sen. McCain,” Rogers said. “ISIS actually wrote out a statement that accused Northern Storm of treachery for reasons including: ‘Meeting with U.S. Senator John McCain in the hangar and making a contract with him against the Islamists.’ The statement goes on to demand that Northern Storm surrender and repent to ISIS or be killed.”
“ISIS actually killed many Northern Storm members, and we’re not going to put them at any further risk by naming them,” Rogers added.
But there’s just one problem with McCain’s office’s story. Now, McCain’s team says the senator didn’t meet with any bad figures but declines to name them, for what seems to be a legitimate reason—although those who are publicly leading combat against ISIS and against Bashar Al-Assad’s regime are probably publicly known figures there.  (read more)