Re: ammo for swiftboating
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12169 Crossed Lines?
E-mails allege that Curt Weldon’s office attempted to obtain information on his opponent from the Navy.
By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 10.26.06
E-mails recently forwarded to the Justice Department by a government watchdog group describe alleged efforts by staff of Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania to call Navy employees for information and negative statements about his Democratic opponent, retired Rear Admiral Joe Sestak. Two e-mails that were forwarded to the Sestak campaign by one current and one former Pentagon employee appear to detail guidance from superiors to staff not to speak with Weldon's office should it call soliciting information about Sestak; Weldon’s office is described in one e-mail as “calling everyone and his brother” in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) about Sestak. A third e-mail written by a defense contractor to the Sestak campaign says that he had been told that Weldon's office had allegedly compiled a “hit list” of defense contractors whose officers had donated to the Sestak campaign, of which he was one, and suggested "retribution" against them. The e-mails were provided to The American Prospect by the Sestak campaign.
The Prospect has confirmed the authenticity of two of the three e-mails, speaking directly with their authors. The Sestak campaign is protecting the identity of the sender of the third e-mail, who it says is an active-duty Pentagon employee.
The Prospect has also interviewed a fourth person, Christine Fox, president of the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development organization where Sestak briefly worked after retiring from the Navy; Fox confirms the authenticity of the e-mail written by her and forwarded by a third party to the Sestak campaign describing Weldon's office as "calling everyone and his brother” in OPNAV. But Fox downplays the e-mail, saying that her own e-mail encouraging staff at her organization CNA not to talk about Sestak with Weldon's office was preemptive in nature, based on a tip she heard at a Navy staff meeting at the Pentagon.
"The short story is that I attend meetings in the Pentagon regularly," Fox told the Prospect Monday. "At one of them, I heard people were trying to gather information on Admiral Sestak, and I wrote my vice president that we should warn staff that were that to happen, the appropriate thing is to send to the Navy's chief of information."
House ethics guidelines and U.S. criminal code prohibit government officials or their staffs or campaigns from using their official positions for partisan political or campaign purposes, such as obtaining information about a political opponent from employees at executive branch agencies. "If this is in fact going on, it is clearly a violation of congressional ethics rules and not just by Weldon, but also by any public official in the executive branch who participated in the scheme," said Craig Holman, campaign finance and lobbying specialist at the government watchdog group Public Citizen. "It also potentially crosses the line into criminal behavior." ...
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