Former Democratic Official Denies Writing Suspect E-mail (MD4Bush)

Governor Ehrlich's Chief Counsel has sent a letter to the co-chairs of a legislative committee investigating hiring and firing practices of the Ehrlich administration.

Included in that letter obtained by WBAL News, Jervis Finney provides the co-chairs with documents he says he uncovered during his investigation into the identity of "MD4Bush".

He points to a now-former State Democratic Party official Ryan O'Doherty who he says sent an email to party supporters hours before the Washington Post published it's first story about the rumors about Mayor O'Malley.

The Governor's chief counsel, in his letter, then points to an email circulated just after midnight the day the O'Malley story was run in the Post. He says it is an e-mail sent to members of the media with a cropped picture of Governor Ehrlich with Joseph Steffen that was sent from the email address "smitty_1945 @ Yahoo.com". The email had the header ...James Smith.

Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith says that is not him and he has never been connected to that email address and he has never had or used that email address. He says he is not the James Smith in the header of that document.

In a statement to WBAL News this morning, Daugherty writes, "Through news outlets over the course of several months, I have learnedof the content of this alleged e-mail, and I can say without a doubtthat I did not write it. In fact, I did not work for the Democratic Party at the time the e-mail was allegedly sent and I'm even told that my e-mail address shown on the document is incorrect. I'm disappointed someone is circulating a document without bothering to verify its authenticity."

In a statement to WBAL News, the governor's General Counsel, Jervis Finney wrote:

MD4Bush Background:

On the night of February 8, 2005 at approximately 11:15pm EST MD4Bush posted private Freepmail content between himself and NCPAC, now known as Joe Steffen – a staffer of Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich. The content of the Freepmails were a discussion of rumors of infidelity by Democrat Mayor Martin O’Malley. At 12 midnight February 9th an email was sent (although it was dated February 8, 6:11pm in the header) describing a “Big Story”:

From: Ryan O’Doherty rodoherty@mddems.org
Sent: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 6:11PM
To:
Subject: BIG Story
There will be a big story in the Post either tomorrow or Thursday that credits Governor Ehrlich's staff for creating and spreading the nasty and untrue rumor about our Mayor and his family. Steve asked me to contact you to see if you could show your disgust by calling into WBAL Radio after the story hits. The guys on WBAL obviously could try to protect Ehrlich, so we need as many folks as possible to call 410-467-WBAL. I will e-mail the story to you as soon as it hits and read it carefully and then call in and raise hell. Don't call in until after the story is published in the Washington Post - It is top secret! There:

“I voted for Ehrlich because I thought he would get rid of the culture of corruption and assasin (sic) politics of Annapolis.. he has only made it worse. He should be ashamed of the dirty smear campaign perpetuated by his own staff. It disgusts me to know that my tax dollars paid for this filth.”

This will be the biggest story of the year. Thanks for your help.

Ryan O’Doherty

rodoherty@mddems.org

443-734-7931
-----Original Message-----
From: James Smith (mailto:smitty_1945@yahoo.com)
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 12:03 AM
To: smitty_1945@yahoo.com
Subject: Governor Ehrlich and Joseph Steffen

The first story to break of the Steffen/NCPAC connection was by the Washington Post. It was published the night of 2/08 and posted shortly after at FR at 11:34pm, less than 30 minutes from the post of MD4Bush revealing Steffen’s private “Freepmail” and probably almost the same time as the Post article was published on its website:

Ehrlich Aide Ousted Over O'Malley Rumors

Web Postings, E-Mail Spread Affair Gossip
By Matthew Mosk

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley yesterday accused agents of Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration of spreading false rumors that he had an extramarital affair, and Ehrlich responded hours later by dismissing a longtime employee.

The story prompted Maryland Democrats to form a Personnel Committee to investigate unfair firing of state employees based on Steffen’s alleged tactics but the Committee never did investigate the exchange between Steffen and MD4Bush and devolved in to an ongoing thorn in the Governor’s side.

But on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 Jervis Finney, Governor Ehrlich’s counsel, released the above email attached to a letter to the Personnel Committee to compel it to subpoena relevant information from Freerepublic as to a possible connection between a Washington Post reporter and Ryan O’Doherty, Communications Director of the Maryland Democrat Party and MD4Bush.

So far O’Doherty denies the email and Matthew Mosk admits he used MD4Bush’s password to examine the private Freepmails to authenticate Steffen’s identity.

In other words, it’s possible that Ryan O’Doherty, Communications Director of the Maryland Democrat Party, after accusing Democrat Mayor Martin O’Malley of “cheating on his wife,” colluded with a Washington Post reporter to impugn the Governor with just those rumors.

And they almost got away with it.

Time to turn on the Clinton-speak parser:

I can say without a doubt that I did not write it

Translation: I typed it on a computer keyboard, I did not 'write' it.

In fact, I did not work for the Democratic Party at the time the e-mail was allegedly sent

That's completely true. I was acting as an independent contractor for the Democratic Party and was not an employee of the Democratic Party.

I'm even told that my e-mail address shown on the document is incorrect

That's correct. Somebody told me that. It happens to be the e-mail address that I used to send that note, however whether or not that e-mail address is one that I personally used is irrelevant, because somebody told me that my e-mail address shown on the document is incorrect.

I'm disappointed someone is circulating a document without bothering to verify its authenticity

It happens to be authentic and accurate, but please don't tell anybody.

Some points:

1) Ryan O'Doherty denied to the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun that he drafted the February 8 e-mail. He says he wasn't working for the Maryland Democratic Party at the time. I've found nothing proving he was working for the Maryland Dems on February 8 - yet. A quote of his was attributed to Ryan O'Doherty "of Maryland Democrat Party" in a January 23 Washington Post article, and he was listed as the contact person on a January 9 Maryland Democratic Party Press Release, as cached by Google. (The contact information has since been removed from the mddems.org version.)

2) The phone number in Response 1's purported O'Doherty e-mail doesn't match Ryan O'Doherty's cell phone number from some of the press releases. It's off by one digit. But if you were typing it up from Jervis Finney's fax, I can understand why. The fax is garbled and hard to read.

3) As I said yesterday, it would be helpful to get the full header information from the O'Doherty e-mail in order to ascertain the IP address of the sender. That's one way we could check if it is a forgery, as O'Doherty claims.

4) I'm in the process of checking through the FEC's records on persons paid by the MD Democrat Party. I skimmed them last night and didn't see O'Doherty's name on the February 2005 or First Quarter 2005 statements.

Frankly, I care a lot less about what happens in MD and am more concerned about the actions of the Washinton Post. This smelled from the beginning and the WP had to know it.

Indeed:

Md. GOP Seeks Wider Firing Probe
(Post Maryland editor, R.B.) Brenner said, "The Washington Post had no involvement in any way in the chat room postings" between Steffen and MD4BUSH. "The Post did not know about them until after they had already occurred, as we have reported."
Brenner said The Post does not know the identity of MD4BUSH, which the newspaper also has reported.
Post reporter Matthew Mosk received printed copies of the message exchanges last fall, Brenner said. To verify they were authentic, he said, Mosk was given sign-on information needed to view the private chat room by an intermediary acting on behalf of MD4BUSH in late January. Mosk used that information to verify that "the chat room messages were genuine," Brenner said. Mosk presented the printouts to Steffen in February to confirm that they represented his words.

Feel free to contact Mr. Brenner at: brennerr@washpost.com and while you're at it send reporter Matthew Mosk a note at: moskm@washpost.com, I did.

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