October 07, 2006 07:57 AM UTC

Illegal or Not?

• 2 Comments
• by: WinstonSmith

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

CBS Channel 4 Reporter Raj Chohan had a new “Reality Check” segment tonight. Rather than looking at television ads, Chohan decided to look at allegations that the Beauprez campaign is illegally coordinating.

http://cbs4denver.co…

Here is the chain of “custody” according to Chohan:

“Trailhead hired a Philadelphia based consultant, John Wasilchick, who acquired the statistics and case numbers (used in the ad attacking Bill Ritter for plea bargains made to immigrants) from the State Judicial Administrator. Wasilchick gave those statistics and case numbers to Trailhead.

Alan Philp, of Trailhead says he gave that research to lots of people including Trailhead’s attorney John Zakhem (source: Alan Philp, Trailhead Group). Zakhem told me he could not comment because of the pending litigation involving Trailhead. The state’s Republican Party however confirmed that it received the research information from Zakhem, who also represents the state party (source: Bryant Adams, Communications Director, Colorado Republican Party). The Colorado Republican Party then turned over the information to the Beauprez campaign (source: John Marshall, Beauprez campaign).”

Chohan points out that, “Under Colorado law, 527’s can lose their special status to receive unlimited soft money, if it’s proven they’ve coordinated directly or indirectly with the campaigns.”

According to Chohan, Trailhead’s “defense” is that, “the info was passed around within Republican circles, but not with the specific intention of it getting back to Beauprez.”

Chohan responds, “That’s frankly, hard to believe, but legally plausible as a defense.”

So, are they illegally coordinating or not? The way the civil justice system works, it could be after the election before we find out.

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