July 21, 2015 03:26 PM UTC

GOP activist claims to have letter listing legal issues facing the state Republican Party

•  
• by: Jason Salzman

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

UPDATE 5 p.m.: Here is the letter referenced below, without any deletions, as provided via the Secretary of State’s Office. It’s from Richard Westfall, not Ryan Call, as alleged below. A couple items of note are 1) a matter under investigation by the Federal Election Commission and 2) a matter involving the notorious Jaxine Bubis, who appears to have turned against the state party.

——–

Kathryn Porter, who wrote a lengthy Politichicks post yesterday illuminating Republican efforts to protect GOP Chair Steve House, appeared on a Denver radio station this morning claiming that the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is refusing to release a letter allegedly outlining ten legal issues possibly faced by state party.

Porter told Boyles that the letter was sent to Steve House from Ryan Call, whose law firm, Hale Westfall, had apparently been representing the state Republican Party. When House defeated Call, Call allegedly sent the letter to House, informing him that Hale Westfall would no longer be representing the state party, according to Porter.

For some strange reason, the letter was sent to the Secretary of State’s office, and it was heavily redacted and released, under CORA, to Porter, as she explained it to Boyles below.

Among other things, Porter questions the grounds on which the SOS redacts the alleged letter from Call to House.

Porter (@10:15): I did a CORA with the Secretary of State’s office on Steve House, regarding election issues, and a letter came back. It was a letter from Ryan Call to the Secretary of State’s office. And you know, Ryan Call is our former state chair. It was a letter to Steve, not the Secretary of State, saying that we inform you that we are immediately no longer representing you, basically, is what it says. So it’s a very interesting letter. And, of course, all the contents were redacted. And there were 10 legal issues that Hale Westfall listed that they were representing the state party in or that they were aware of. So I found that very interesting. And what I found even more interesting is that the Secretary of State’s office refuses to give me the unredacted version…We have basically the first two sentences and the closing sentence. And the number of how many things they redacted.

Boyles: They treat this like Watergate or something. Like an atomic secret.

Porter: It raises so many more questions. It makes me wonder, is the Secretary of State hiding something? Or covering something up for the Colorado Republican Party? They claim deliberative process and they claim attorney-client privilege. And we know Hale Westfall was not sending this letter to the Secretary of State’s office. There is no attorney-client privilege between Hale Westfall and the Secretary of State. So the only leg they have to stand on is deliberative process. And in order to not give me that information, they need to show me that irreparable harm would occur if they share that information with me. Is there some type of legal issue involving the Secretary of State’s office and the Colorado Republican Party? This opens up a whole new can of worms, a whole new set of questions.

I have yet to see a copy of this alleged letter, so we need to take this odd allegation with some serious grains of salt. But I’ll stay on this. Maybe The Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels can help us out, when she starts over there.