Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Governor Posts Lengthy Response to eMail Stories

Gov. Susana Martinez has posted a lengthy take on her Facebook page about the email scandal.

In it, she attacks state Democratic Party Chairman Sam Bregman, Attorney General Gary King and others.

No, she doesn't talk about the FBI interviewing her former campaign finance manager about the racetrack contract and other scandals. She's already said no such investigation exists, despite Andrea Goff going public.

She concludes the post saying, "I stood up to criminals for 25 years as a prosecutor, I wasn’t intimidated then and I won't be intimidated now." I'm assuming the "criminals" she's talking about aren't the attorney general, Bregman and Ives.

I've asked for a response from Bregman and hopefully will be talking to others. I'll update this post as needed. (UPDATE: 1 pm. A spokesman for Bregman just told me, "the Chairman has no comment.")

I'm not sure what she means by Jamie Estrada's lawyer promising a "smear campaign," unless she's talking about Zach Ives saying that he will be mounting an aggressive defense.

Here's the governor's statement in its entirety:

How low will they go? 

Please indulge a lengthy post, as many of you have asked me about the recent news of my email theft and I thought I would take time on my flight back to New Mexico to provide you a thorough update. 

Last week, an individual I fired from my campaign was indicted in federal court for illegally intercepting my political and personal emails for almost a year that were then released to the media by leftwing political groups last year. The man is also charged with lying to the FBI about the scheme. 

A few days later, another man whose computers were seized by the FBI in the email theft investigation was arrested for possession of child pornography. The child pornography was found when the FBI served a search warrant in the email theft investigation, according to news reports. This man was the PAC Manager for the now Chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Sam Bregman. Bregman was very active in trying to use the emails to attack me. 

Some of the stolen emails included things such as bank account information, receipts for clothing, and political strategy memos. Those personal emails were released to be publicized by New Mexico Attorney General and Democratic candidate for Governor Gary King. Afterward, King claimed he had no idea there was an ongoing FBI investigation despite the fact it had been very publicly reported in the media.

In politics, we should expect tough and vigorous debates on the issues. But it’s disgusting to see operatives committing crimes and invading the privacy of their political opponents just to score cheap political points. And it's almost unbelievable that the state’s chief law enforcement officer interfered with an ongoing federal investigation by releasing emails he had to have known were stolen -- and provided to him directly by a union-funded PAC. That shouldn't happen on either side of the aisle.

Now, the leftwing criminal defense lawyer representing the indicted is promising a smear campaign. I stood up to criminals for 25 years as a prosecutor, I wasn’t intimidated then and I won't be intimidated now.