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Ritters deficient defense
the Denver Post ^ | 11/04/2009 | Vincent Carroll

Posted on 11/05/2009 5:46:12 AM PST by coloradomomba

"You really should go read the John Kane opinion as opposed to just reading Vince Carroll's column," Gov. Bill Ritter told a KOA audience Monday, because Judge Kane's "findings were that nobody in the DA's office did anything wrong."

By all means, let's review Kane's remarks last year regarding the contacts between Ritter's 2006 campaign and the Denver district attorney's office following an attack ad released by Republican candidate Bob Beauprez. The episode is suddenly relevant because President Barack Obama nominated Ritter's deputy chief of staff and former campaign worker, Stephanie Villafuerte, as Colorado's next U.S. attorney.

As Ritter suggests, Kane did offer a vote of confidence in the DA's office. He said, "It is a legitimate use of NCIC [a federal crime database] for a law enforcement agency such as a state district attorney's office to obtain information to respond to inquiries from the public, and that public includes the press, political organizations and committees.

"There is no evidence of Denver district attorney's office personnel engaging in any illegal activity."

For the record, I never wrote that it would be illegal for the DA's office to access the database to respond to a request from a political campaign. Indeed, I was a good deal more accurate in my language than Ritter, for example, when he told Beauprez during a televised debate three years ago that "your campaign broke the law" in obtaining the information in the ad....

Shouldn't Coloradans expect their district attorneys to refrain from exploiting their unique power and access to information on behalf of partisan politics? Politicking by employees at the federal level is actually illegal under the Hatch Act, a fact that Kane refers to approvingly elsewhere in his opinion.

(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: denver; ritter; villafuerte

1 posted on 11/05/2009 5:46:14 AM PST by coloradomomba
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To: coloradomomba

according to local radio show, KHOW, Fox news will be looking into this story. KHOW, Boyles’s show is all over this topic.


2 posted on 11/05/2009 5:47:45 AM PST by coloradomomba (BO stinks!)
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To: coloradomomba
"..."It is a legitimate use of NCIC [a federal crime database] for a law enforcement agency such as a state district attorney's office to obtain information to respond to inquiries from the public..."

The amount of depth of information on any one individual in the NCIS is shocking and staggering. Perhaps someone should run the judge's name (merely in response to an 'inquiry from the public') and publish it. Watch the sh!t hit the fan then!

3 posted on 11/05/2009 6:03:31 AM PST by frankenMonkey ("Natural Born Citizen" - US Constitution, 1787; "Words have meaning" - Barack Obama, 2009)
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To: frankenMonkey

NCIS=NCIC (more coffee needed)


4 posted on 11/05/2009 6:05:32 AM PST by frankenMonkey ("Natural Born Citizen" - US Constitution, 1787; "Words have meaning" - Barack Obama, 2009)
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To: frankenMonkey
Never a good idea to piss off Gibbs...

;^)

5 posted on 11/05/2009 6:21:27 AM PST by SAJ
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