[nunya bidness]

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.

[nunya bidness]

Update.

[b4its2late]

This cat did it.....

[sodpoodle]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1514267/posts?page=1#1

more here or it's a duplicate


sp

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the ping.

This is going to get very interesting in the next few days.

We will need tour guides and Cliff Notes to keep up with the players and their denials as this gets hotter.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..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"

No surpise here, the Committee knows where the investigation would lead. If any of this was to their advantage FR would have been subpoened long ago.

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.

[The Electrician]

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.

[conservative in nyc]

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.

[backhoe]

The O'Malley Affair- NCPAC, MD4Bush, Ehrlich, & more
various FR links & stories | 02-13-05 | the heavy equipment guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1342165/posts

[Free Vulcan]

Then the Wash Post has been caught in a lie. From the Baltimore Sun:

R.B. Brenner, Maryland editor of The Washington Post, said the newspaper "had no involvement in any way in the chat room postings between NCPAC and MD4BUSH on the freerepublic.com Web site."

"The Post did not know about them until after they had already occurred, as we have reported in the newspaper," Brenner said, adding "we do not know the identity of MD4BUSH."

"When we obtained copies of the chat room messages between NCPAC and MD4BUSH, it was clear that they contained potentially newsworthy information," Brenner said. To verify their authenticity, he said, "someone acting on behalf of MD4BUSH provided reporter Matt Mosk with the sign-on information necessary to view the messages on freerepublic.com."

Brenner said Mosk logged on as MD4BUSH two or three times before the Feb. 9 publication of his article only to verify that the messages were genuine."

How could O'Doherty at 6:11 pm known about an article was supposedly based on information not posted till 11:15 pm?

Even if the header date is wrong, how could this have all been put together in less than 15 minutes?

[King Prout]

ping

[King Prout]

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