DPVA: What Did Kenney and Gillespie Know, and When Did They Know It?

By: Lowell
Published On: 6/5/2007 3:18:24 PM

The DPVA is asking important, hard-hitting questions about the involvement of top RPVA officials in the Mark Tate scandal.  Nice job!

P.S.  Bolding added by me for emphasis.

BACKGROUND MEMORANDUM
June 5, 2007

TO: Interested reporters, producers and bloggers
FR: Democratic Party of Virginia
RE: 10 inconvenient questions for VA GOP leaders about illegally leaked grand jury information

With 27th Senate District Republican candidate Mark D. Tate having made his first appearance today in Loudoun County Circuit Court, there are still a number of important questions remaining to be asked of top GOP officials this week regarding the circumstances of Tate?s indictment.

The core issue is how the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) Chairman Ed Gillespie and Communications Director Shaun Kenney received information resulting from an illegal leak of secret grand jury deliberations.


Tate was indicted on May 22 on two counts of election fraud and nine counts of perjury. Grand jury proceedings are secret and leaking information about them is generally illegal.

Tate asserts in Sunday's Leesburg Today that Gillespie called him on April 30 about a "pending legal problem" Tate was going to have. The call date is almost a full month before public knowledge of the indictments, and weeks before blogs or news media outlets referenced Tate's legal problems.

The normally talkative Gillespie declined to answer questions this weekend from The Washington Post about the call. The national political paper, Politico.com, is reporting that Gillespie is now a strong candidate to replace outgoing top White House aide Dan Bartlett.

Kenney, it appears, tried to plant stories about Tate's problems in early May, according to the Washington Post story on June 1.

It's worth noting that veteran RPV official Jim Rich (10th District Chairman) has called the timing of the RPV's "new" policy on indicted officials something that "needs to be looked into," and has expressed concern about the possibility of illegal leaks for grand jury information, presumably to RPV top brass.

Yesterday, Jill Holtzman Vogel sent a letter to supporters calling the timing of Tate?s indictment "unfortunate" but "certainly not political hype." She further charged that Tate has "slandered and belittled prosecutors, judges, a grand jury, my campaign, the state party, respected conservative leaders and many others, weaving a conspiracy theory that is full of distortions and fantasy." The full text of her letter is attached below.

Here are 10 important questions that need to be answered by Gillespie, Kenney and GOP brass who met in Richmond on Saturday:

  1. How, when and from whom did Gillespie and Kenney learn of the Tate?s pending indictment?

  2. Did Gillespie call Tate on April 30, and did he discuss the indictment directly or indirectly?

  3. Did any member of the small, tight circle of those who knew of the grand jury deliberations illegally tip off RPV officials? As Kenney told Leesburg Today: "There is only so many people that can know about [a pending indictment]... The direct routes are [Loudoun] Commonwealth?s Attorney, [Jim Plowman], [special prosecutor] Matt Britton and anybody on the grand jury. All three of those parties go to jail if they talk."

  4. Did Tate opponent, attorney Jill Holtzman Vogel, or her supporters, facilitate a leak of grand jury information to Gillespie and top RPV officials" Holtzman Vogel worked for Gillespie during his tenure as Republican National Committee Chairman, and her bio on her law firm?s website asserts she specializes in ?ethics, campaign finance and tax exempt organizations.?

  5. Holtzman Vogel's husband, Alex Vogel, served as a lawyer at the Republican National Committee and for the Florida recount in 2000. Did he have any contact with those involved with the indictment?

  6. Does Kenney have a plausible explanation for the contradiction between his initial assertion that the RPV policy on indicted candidates was a long-standing response to the early 2006 corruption problems of Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (R), versus the email trail from Kenney suggesting a more recent genesis of the policy?

  7. Is it plausible that Democratic blogger Ben Tribbett was the only member of the Virginia media to whom Kenney provided this information, or were more members of the Virginia media misled by Kenney? Kenney told Leesburg Today that he and Tribbett had a long-running feud from the days that Kenney was a blogger.

  8. Are there RPV executive committee members besides Rich who are uneasy about the suspicious timing and actions by the RPV on the Tate indictment? Other members can be found at: http://www.rpv.org/c...

  9. The Virginia Conservative Action PAC, which has endorsed Holtzman Vogel, first asserted on its website that Tate was under criminal investigation. How did the PAC learn of this information?

  10. Kenney?s communication with Tribbett suggests that state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-37) had also been tipped off to Tate's pending indictment. Was Cuccinelli told, and, if so, by whom? If not, what is his view of the matter? Kenney?s evasive answer about Cuccinelli?s involvement leaves this question unanswered. Kenney said: "I can't let that source go. I can deny who it was, but I can't tell you who the source was."

I can't wait to hear the answers to these questions!

Comments



Sanity check please (blueweeds - 6/5/2007 5:55:07 PM)
These allegations seem seriously off base and way too premature to me.  A great story coming out of the blog community, but the DPVA talking points memo overreaches and raises some important issues of whether or not bloggers are being used as a front for a political smear campaign.  The grand jury secrecy rule is not as all-encompassing as it's portrayed here or by the memo you've posted.  The secrecey rule applies only to members of the grand jury - not witnesses or even officers of the court.  (http://leg1.state.va...). Once information is out, it's out, and no one except for grand jury members are obligated by law to keep the proceedings secret.  When organizing a grand jury presentation every prosecutor chooses witnesses and evidence knowing that the secrecey rule is a small fig leaf on their case that only covers members - prosecutors routinely make decisions about who they want to see their evidence naked.

There are any number of scenarios where there was no illegal leak, and there are even more scenarios was there was a violation of a secrecy rule, but downstream "shareres" of the information have absolutely no legal culpability. 

A headlong rush to ask the conspiracy question skips way too many steps for me. 



How can the story be coming out of the blogs (Lowell - 6/5/2007 6:01:07 PM)
yet the blogs are being "used as a front?"  Seems like a contradiction in logic.  Also, it seems like a number of people owe Ben Tribbett an apology.


Yeah, I agree (blueweeds - 6/5/2007 6:14:18 PM)
Ben is owed an apology and that a handful of blogs have been at their best in this developing story.  But the DPVA talking points memo you've shared seems to me to be a step or two beyond the facts and seems, even more disturbingly, to be a blantent attempt to lead bloggers down a path of making very loose allegations about criminal conduct. 


Many good questions here (True Blue - 6/6/2007 7:26:58 AM)
I think the DPVA over-reached to get to ten questions; they could have held it to about six.  The least effective is #5.

The RPV's story still doesn't add up.  Reporters need to demand answers to questions 1-4, 6, 9 and 10.