Ehrlich's Ex-Aide Targeted (MD4BUSH-NCPAC)

Washington Post ^ | 03/09/05 | Matthew Mosk

[conservative in nyc]

Maryland lawmakers will convene a special investigative committee to look into allegations that an aide to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. engaged in political dirty tricks and participated in what one House leader called "potentially illegal hiring and firing practices."

House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) said the probe will start in April, immediately after the legislature adjourns its regular 90-day session. He said that details of the inquiry have not been set but that it might be conducted with the help of an independent counsel, who would be granted subpoena power. "It's something we've never done, but we've never seen behavior like this," Busch said.

Busch said the investigation will focus on the activities of Joseph Steffen, a longtime Ehrlich aide who boasted in Internet postings of an orchestrated effort to "give float" to rumors that one of the governor's political rivals had an extramarital affair.

Busch said numerous state workers have contacted lawmakers and identified Steffen as one of several mid-level aides who allegedly moved from one state agency to another, making lists of people they believed were disloyal to Ehrlich (R) and should be fired.

Ehrlich aides have called those allegations nonsense, and Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell said yesterday that while they welcome any inspection of Steffen's activities, the probe sounded "a lot more like a political sideshow."

---Snip---

Busch said he was most troubled by fired state employees' allegations that they were tormented by Steffen, who referred to himself as the Prince of Darkness, and by others.

"This is about protecting the workforce of Maryland," Busch said. "I don't think decent people should be treated this way by someone who is nothing more than a second-rate Tony Soprano running around the Ehrlich administration."

[conservative in nyc]

NCPAC - Congratulations! The Democrats think you're a second-rate Tony Soprano.

Jim Rob - Which do you think will happen first? You receive a subpoena from the Democrats or hell freezes over?

[af_vet_1981]

"This is about protecting the workforce of Maryland," Busch said.

He means that he wants to protect his consituency of thugs, muggers, rapists, and murderers who stalk undisturbed through Maryland's suburbs ...

[advance_copy]

This is easy to recognize as a political stunt. I don't think that any "investigation" by MD DUmbocRATS will reveal the identity of MD4BUSH, do you? Still, it might distract attention away from MD4BUSH, which seems to be the point.

[conservative in nyc]

PING.

Cheat sheet for lurkers and FReepers not paying attention to the NCPAC/Rumorgate saga:

What happened and why we care:

Steffen is a Freeper (NCPAC) and the Baltimore Sun and (to a lesser extent) the Washington Post have blamed Free Republic and NCPAC for spreading rumors that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley had an affair with a news anchorwoman. NCPAC only commented on those rumors, which seem to be as prevalent in Baltimore as Giuliani infidelity rumors were in New York City during his first marriage. But Giuliani never held a news conference on it or tried to use the rumors for personal gain.

The Baltimore Sun and (to a lesser extent, the Washington Post) seem content to give the impression that NCPAC spread the rumor on this "conservative Web site" first. It was on USENET about the same time it was here, and in Dave Hughes' DCrtv.com Mailbag before xcullen posted it here. It was also posted on DU.

Questions lurking reporters might want to ask about how the rumors REALLY were spread on the internet and the mysterious MD4Bush whose FReepmail conversations were somehow received by the Washington Post include:

1) "Dave from Sterling" said in the DCrtv.com July 5, 2004 mailbag that the DCrtv.com rumors were being spread by "a repetitive area wag". Does the Post or Sun know who he or she is? Have they bothered to ask their own staff or the owner of the DCrtv.com site?

2) A simple USENET search of groups.google.com shows that a person or group of persons has been spreading bad news about Baltimore on USENET and their own websites. The Baltimore Sun itself reported on one of those person or persons' websites on August 7, 1998. Are any of the persons named in that article responsible for spreading the USENET O'Malley infidelity beginning last July 25? Is there any evidence that NCPAC, MD4Bush, or the other posters on the Free Republic threads were involved in the USENET postings?

3) The Baltimore Sun should have the logs for the O'Malley infidelity posts on their website. If they do, what does the Sun know about the persons spreading the rumors? Can they trace the posts back to NCPAC? "a repetitive area wag"? Someone else?

[Anti-Bubba182]

Thanks for the ping.

[conservative in nyc]

I think the Maryland Democrats are probably lurking here. They know we think their failure to investigate sends a signal that they know more about MD4Bush and the O'Malley infidelity rumors than they have calculated.

But I doubt the MD Democrats will hold any investigation that is detrimental to the MD Democrat party.

[conservative in nyc]

PING.

[Anti-Bubba182]

".. But I doubt the MD Democrats will hold any investigation that is detrimental to the MD Democrat party."

I wouldn't think so.

The attorney general of Maryland is Mayor O'Malley's father-in-law.

Jervis Finney (Chief Counsel to Governer Ehrlich) need to find a way to subpoena Jim's records.

[nopardons]

bttt

[xcullen]

I would also like to add that my question in that post was out of pure curiousity as I know this forum generally will hash out the BS from the truth. I actually concluded from that thread that there was probably nothing to the rumors because there were two different women mentioned and the number of children increased from a single baby to "twins".