Free Republic

For the Maryland lawmakers who have spent eight months investigating why so many state employees were fired by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration, yesterday was supposed to be the big day. After more than 20 witnesses subpoenaed, sworn and grilled, it was time for the main event. Time to get back to where it all started. Time to hear from Joe Steffen. "I half expected him to burst in the hearing room in dramatic fashion, wearing a cape or something," said Ward B. Coe III, the special counsel hired last year to conduct the probe. But the man who...

The Maryland legislative committee investigating the administration's termination of dozens of longtime state workers plans to hear from key witnesses today, including Public Service Commission Chairman Kenneth D. Schisler. Lawmakers had hoped the star witness of the day would be Joseph Steffen, the former Ehrlich political aide who called himself "the Prince of Darkness" and, according to testimony thus far, had compiled lists of people to fire. After months of staying in touch with Steffen, and a series of interviews, the legislature's chief investigator, Ward Coe, now says he can't locate Steffen. Last week, Coe hired a process server to...

He called himself "Al Qaeda" and told an employee he was sent to the Maryland Public Service Commission to thin the regulatory agency's ranks and bring in friends of the governor's administration, the agency's former spokeswoman said yesterday. Craig Chesek, who became the PSC's chief of staff in 2003, helped create an agency better suited to represent utilities than consumers, Chrys Wilson told a special legislative committee investigating the hiring and firing practices of Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. --Snip-- The highlight of the probe was expected at the next meeting with the testimony of Joseph Steffen, the former...

The 12-member legislative committee investigating Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s personnel practices voted Friday to extend its work until mid June as its special counsel vowed to issue more subpoenas. The Special Committee on Employee Rights and Protections — after months of dormancy — met Friday morning to decide its next steps in probing the hiring and firing decisions made by the Ehrlich administration. The panel met in closed session where its legal counsel, Ward B. Coe III, discussed his on-going efforts in obtaining personnel documents from the Ehrlich administration via speaker phone. Democratic members said that the administration has...

The Attorney General's Office says they may show evidence of a felony: unauthorized use of a restricted Web site. By John Shiffman Inquirer Staff Writer In an unusual and little-known case, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office has seized four computer hard drives from a Lancaster newspaper as part of a statewide grand-jury investigation into leaks to reporters.The dispute pits the government's desire to solve an alleged felony - computer hacking - against the news media's fear that taking the computers circumvents the First Amendment and the state Shield Law.The state Supreme Court declined last week to take the case, allowing...

Call him Prince of Darkness. Darth Vader. Or, if you want to get on his good side, the Angel Moroni. Just don't call him candidate for governor. Joe Steffen's not running. "I really have decided not to run," Steffen told me yesterday. "The main reason is, most people thought I was doing it just to be vindictive - to be a jerk or be vindictive. I have no personal animosity toward anybody. I didn't want it to come across looking like I did." Is this the same Joe Steffen who cultivated a foreboding image as an Ehrlich administration aide, one...

--Snip-- Nitkin: These questions most frequently come from within the Republican Party of Maryland. The state Republican Party is offering the theory that the former executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party, Josh White, left his post because of some connection to MD4Bush, the Internet identity of a person or persons who engaged former gubernatorial aide Joseph F. Steffen Jr. into talking about how rumors about Martin O'Malley's personal life had been spread. There's no evidence to back this up. White may have landed a new position, but he has not yet confirmed for us his new employer. Ryan O'Doherty...

A special legislative committee heard testimony Monday from three more workers who lost their jobs after Gov. Robert Ehrlich took office in 2003, including one woman who was fired from two jobs, the second time while recovering from eye surgery. Susan Fernandez testified that as a high-level employee in the Department of Human Resources, she was not surprised when told she would be replaced as assistant secretary by the new administration and quickly lined up a new state job at the Department of Juvenile Justice. Just a month after starting the new job, she said she was told by a...

Frustrated by the Ehrlich administration's refusal to turn over key personnel information, a legislative committee investigating the governor's hiring and firing practices authorized its special counsel yesterday to subpoena documents and to take the administration to court if it refuses to give them up. The administration has handed over thousands of pages of documents, but missing are e-mails and other papers that might show the extent to which Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. considered politics in his personnel decisions, said House Speaker Pro Tem Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County), the special committee's co-chairman. "We would be finished with this if they...

A legislative inquiry into the firing practices of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. likely will be delayed again. A panel of lawmakers probing whether the Republican governor unfairly fired Democratic state employees was supposed to conclude its work before this week. But members of the special committee announced yesterday that at least five more workers would be called to testify and that a second extension likely would be sought. "I don't see how we can finish by January 31," said Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, Charles Democrat and co-chairman of the committee. He said lawmakers need to hear from more former...

--Snip-- Stuart, Baltimore: How come The Sun is not investigating the identity of "MD4Bush" and his possible ties to O'Malley? Nitkin: I've said repeatedly that The Sun is interested in learning the identity of the Internet poster who talked about O'Malley. The source of the information must come from the Web site itself, www.freerepublic.com. We've gotten some information from them. We'd like to get more. --Snip--

Olesker Out Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - The Associated Press Columnist Michael Olesker has resigned two weeks before his 30th anniversary with The (Baltimore) Sun amid allegations of plagiarism, after an alternative weekly found instances in which he used the work of other journalists without attribution.Olesker resigned Tuesday, a day before the City Paper article hit the streets."I hope that people will understand that in the course of deadline pressures and trying to take a jumble of facts and boil them down to something understandable that I made errors of sloppiness and inadvertence that were human mistakes and certainly...

Joseph F. Steffen Jr. was the Ehrlich administration's Katrina. The case for awarding him such year-end eminence rests on the impact he made as Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s designated prince of patronage, the headline-making endurance of his work and its devastating potential for the Republican Party in Maryland on the eve of an election year. Joe Steffen has more name recognition than many of the candidates who think they can break through at some level in the political scrum looming this year. He is destined to become a negative bumper sticker for Mr. Ehrlich's administration. In the early years,...

Josh White, who took over daily operations of a dispirited Maryland Democratic Party after the Republican gubernatorial victory in 2002, is leaving the organization nine months before next year's primary. A widely respected political professional, White, 38, was hired in 2003 as executive director, but lost the title after Terry Lierman replaced Isiah Leggett as party chairman last year. --Snip-- White declined yesterday to give a reason for his departure but said he was leaving at the end of the year. Party offices in Annapolis are closed next week, meaning White's duties have effectively ended. "I'm just looking forward to...

<p>Joseph F. Steffen Jr., discounted by the Ehrlich administration as a rogue employee who operated on his own to target workers for firing, was assigned to a large state agency by the governor's chief of staff and reported to him directly, state Human Resources Secretary Christopher J. McCabe testified yesterday.</p>

A Cabinet secretary for Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. testified yesterday that he was forced to invite into his agency the man who called himself "The Prince of Darkness" and quickly became troubled by the aide's efforts to target employees for termination. Secretary of Human Resources Christopher J. McCabe said he twice raised objections in late 2003 about Joseph Steffen's mission -- including once in a letter he had the department's top lawyer write to Ehrlich's chief counsel, in which he complained that Steffen was rifling through an employee's payroll records. Steffen "made me uncomfortable and others uncomfortable," McCabe...

ONE THING is certain about dirty politics -- it's a malady afflicting both parties. A conservative Web site is alleging that a former Democratic Party worker baited an aide to Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. into discoursing on the Internet about the personal life of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. This rumor-mongering got the aide, Joseph Steffen, immediately fired. But it was a black eye for the governor, even if he wasn't personally involved. Now, the conservative Web site freerepublic.com says one of several addresses used in the e-mail exchange with Mr. Steffen is rodoherty@mddems.org. Democratic Party officials confirm that is the...

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. criticized yesterday Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a rival in the governor's race, for praising a surreptitious Internet user who lured an Ehrlich aide into circulating rumors about the mayor's personal life. Speaking on his bimonthly WBAL radio show, Ehrlich said MD4Bush, the screen name of an anonymous visitor to a conservative Web site, discussed rumors about O'Malley and insulted Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, and should not be applauded. On Friday, O'Malley, a Democrat, said he wanted to thank MD4Bush for helping expose the role of an Ehrlich aide in talking about the mayor's personal life....

As Republicans and conservatives zero in on the identity of the mysterious Internet visitor who coaxed an aide to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. into spreading rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a question is blossoming in political circles. Does the identity of MD4Bush, the surreptitious user of a conservative Web site, matter? If revealed, will the knowledge change the public's perception of O'Malley or Ehrlich? Some political experts say that the answer to both questions is yes and that it's worth following the plot turns in the increasingly convoluted saga. If MD4Bush turns out to be a Democratic Party...

Maryland Democratic Party officials acknowledged yesterday that they have replaced their executive director but said the move is little more than a change in job titles. The party has replaced Joshua M. White with acting Executive Director Derek Walker, who had served as the party's communications director. Mr. White was reassigned some time last month to the job of political director. The reorganization comes as more evidence shows a state Democratic Party operative was involved in a "dirty tricks" campaign to smear the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican. However, party officials said yesterday that the job...