May 30, 2007 04:11 PM UTC

No Leads Yet on Spence Threat Email

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Rocky Mountain News reports:

A state lawmaker who received an e-mail containing a threat to her grandchildren said Tuesday it was sent from a computer at a metro-area hotel.

Agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation reviewed the hotel’s security tape but couldn’t determine the e-mail’s author, said Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial.

The security tape had been improperly inserted, Spence said Tuesday at a political luncheon.

She has vowed to press charges if authorities catch the culprit, who was upset over an education matter at the Capitol…

The e-mail referred to a controversy at the Capitol surrounding Democratic lawmaker Michael Merrifield’s comments blasting vouchers and charter schools. Merrifield, of Colorado Springs, resigned as House Education Committee chairman after a conservative blog posted his remarks.

“Ed Barger” accused Spence, who supports school choice, of somehow being involved with the conservative blog. The e- mail accused the blog of “humiliating Merrifield.”

“You need to pay, . . . but your grandchildren will pay first,” the e-mail stated.

Your guess is as good as ours, of course, and we’ve never doubted Sen. Spence’s sincerity or honesty on this. We deplore the idea that anyone–especially someone’s grandkids–would be threatened over policy questions in the state legislature.

Having said that, this incident has always struck us as…a little weird. Given that it occured right around the time when GOP operative Brad Jones was at the peak of his publicity, both for the Merrifield exposure (which “provoked” this threatening email, so the story goes) and his dubious work in the Colorado Senate Minority Office…

Without making any accusations, let us simply reiterate that this situation asks more questions than it answers. It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, the CBI ultimately fingers.

By the way, we’re also curious how a security tape can be “improperly inserted,” as Spence indicates. You know you’ve got a crack security team when they are sticking in the tapes upside down.