Monday, June 2, 2014

Arizona's Lawless top Law Enforcer -- Tom Horne -- responds to Sarah Beattie's allegations UPDATED 6-4-14 12:05am

You may recall that a few weeks ago, former Arizona Attorney General staffer Sarah Beattie resigned her position in the AG office and filed a complaint against Tom Horne stating that re-election candidate Horne was extensively using elected official Horne's taxpayer supplied resources -- including but not necessarily limited to office space and staff time -- to conduct fundraising and other campaign related activities.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett, with whom Beattie's complaint was filed, responded with a letter to Horne attorney Dennis Wilenchik setting June 2 as the deadline for a response to the complaint.
Our original deadline for a response was May 21, 2014. Your letter requests sixty days to respond and while we cannot accommodate that request, we can extend our deadline to 5:00 pm. on Monday, June 2, 2014. The complaint consists of a 15-page declaration that contains allegations and the remaining documents providing supporting evidence of those allegations.
Apparently, Wilenchik couldn't be bothered breaking his summer vacation plans. Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times reported that Wilenchik then declared that he would not be representing Horne in this matter.
After further review and consideration, and discussion with the Attorney General, I will not be representing him in either the Secretary of State matter or the Clean Elections matter from this date forward. Mr. Horne, it is my present understanding, will be representing himself in responding to both of your inquiries so you may deal with him directly. Thank you for you professional courtesy and cooperation extended to me previously.
Since I am headed to Peru and the Galapagos Islands through mid June starting this Wednesday I think I will be having the better time than working on this anyway. In any event, thanks again to all, and Mr. Horne is fully aware of your deadline of June 2nd and intends to comply with it. Have a wonderful summer (if there is such a thing here) and take care. There is no need to copy me on anything further with respect to this matter.
Today, Horne responded to the complaint with a 44-page denial. Part of it is something you would expect to be written by a defense attorney rebutting criminal charges. Other parts of it seem a bit surreal. Actually, it makes me wonder (I'm not clinically qualified to professionally diagnose, but I read...) if Tom Horne is not actually a psychopath.*

Horne characterizes part of his response to be witness statements from people who have no connection to the Horne campaign. One of which is,
Kevin Demenna (lobbyist Who had employed Beattie): “When Sarah Beattie left my employment, I was told by a number of people that she claimed I had pushed my religion on her. That was never the case.” [...]
So, to believe that Beattie is a truth teller, one has to not only believe that five co-workers are liars, but that the former Deputy Director of the McCain campaign is a liar, in a situation where he has no motive one way or another. It is more probable that Beattie is the fabricator, then [sic] that all those other people are liars.
It may be nit picky on my part, but how anyone could make an objective judgment about a person based on DeMenna's denial of allegations of proselytizing is beyond me. If DeMenna mentioned his religion even once, it's reasonable for a person uncomfortable with his doing so to characterize it as "pushing it on" her, unless SHE is the one who brought it up. In a tweet he posted about six months ago, DeMenna reveals himself to have a religious frame of reference. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
My hunch is that there might be SOME truth to SOME of the things in Horne's 44-page document. I have asked Beattie's attorney, Tom Ryan, a couple of related questions. When I hear from him, I'll update this post.

Ms. Beattie, in an interview with 12 News reporter Brahm Resnik, did tell Horne to hit her with his best shot. We'll soon see if that's actually what, with the response today, he did.

In the meantime, a number of Arizona Republicans, including Congressman Matt Salmon and blogger Shane Wikfors, have called for Horne to end his campaign... apparently hoping he will concede to Republican challenger Mark Brnovich, thereby saving the GOP an embarrassing defeat come November.

To which I pose this: Felecia deserves a rematch!

And despite the state legislature having repealed #HB2305 a couple of months ago, I expect there has been too many oppressive shenanigans done in the last couple of years for the voters to forget. In 2014, Arizona voters will reclaim Democracy for the people.

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* NOTE: Resources for consideration of whether Arizona, in 2010 put a psychopath into the office of Attorney General.

By the way, for all of Sarah Beattie's youthful boldness, I figure she's got plenty of chinks in her armor, or personal faults, just like ALL of us do. But I've got to hand it to her, it's a momentous undertaking to challenge someone like Tom Horne. I hope she's got plenty of support.

I also think it's way past time for local media to ask and explore the question of whether Tom Horne is a psychopath.  One of the hallmarks, according to what I've read, from the article Suffering Souls,  
Psychopaths don’t exhibit the manias, hysterias, and neuroses that are present in other types of mental illness. Their main defect, what psychologists call “severe emotional detachment”—a total lack of empathy and remorse—is concealed, and harder to describe than the symptoms of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. This absence of easily readable signs has led to debate among mental-health practitioners about what qualifies as psychopathy and how to diagnose it.

Will the Arizona Republican Party succeed in getting Horne to step aside in favor of Brnovich? Not a snowball's chance in Phoenix on a hot summer day in August.

Will Brnovich be able to knock Horne off in the primary? I seriously doubt it. He doesn't seem to have the "killer instinct" that may be necessary to win that contest.

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UPDATE

Earlier today, Sarah Beattie's attorney, Tom Ryan provided some comments to questions I posed to him. Here are some of them.
Horne's response fails to meet the specifics of our allegations. We provided 146 pages of documents with embedded meta data proving our allegations. He doesn't deny them. Instead, he tries to "spin it to win it." For example, Sarah stated in her affidavit that she never once had a substantive discussion with Tom Horne about actual office work. Instead,she only talked campaign stuff with him. That is not refuted by Horne in his response.
Like with Horne's appearance on local news broadcasts, his response shows ZERO remorse or any other indication he even has a conscience.

Another example is the issue of the donor book which we stated he deliberately mislabeled "Border Patrol" and used at his desk. 
His only response is (1) Sarah and Ryan stole the book & (2) Ryan held it up as a political trophy as a stunt to embarrass Horne. So let's look at each allegation. The donor notebook was not stolen by Sarah, Horne often gave it to Sarah to make donor calls. She simply forgot she had it in her trunk. Horne had Garrett Archer give him a new donor list off the computer which Tom Horne put into a new Border Patrol notebook. When Sarah gave me the notebook, I knew it was probable evidence of a crime. I did what any good attorney would do: I turned it over to the FBI. 
One thing Horne did get right about me is this: I absolutely held up the deliberately mislabeled Border Patrol notebook and allowed the New Times to photograph me with the notebook with the intent of embarrassing Tom Horne. He should be embarrassed! I do like how he accuses Sarah and me of "theft of intellectual property."
Of course, Horne is NOT embarrassed. He has no shame, no regret. After all, he is not the one (in his mind) who has committed a crime, or even a breach of ethics. Isn't that the hallmark of a psychopath?
...everything that Sarah attached to her affidavit was knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily sent to her for her use and knowledge. How can that be theft?!
How is taking a paper with the exhortation to the campaign staff that "we need to get our shit together," intellectual property? Indeed, what is " intellectual" about that at all?
In summary, all Horne has in response about Sarah's allegations is this: she has an unsavory past and no one should trust her. That is very ironic coming from a man who has a lifetime ban by the SEC for fraudulently ripping off innocent folks!
One other thought about Horne's response : he accuses Sarah of being a "plant" in his office by one of the other campaigns (Brnovich or Rotellini). I think it is time for Tom Horne to be officially fitted for his tinfoil hat! If Sarah was a"spy" for one of the other camps then she is probably the most successful mole since Mata Hari, because not only did Sarah get herself immediately invited into Tom Horne's inner sanctum without really trying, but she convinced Horne to raise her salary by $13,000 in just two months!
Let's reflect on Horne's lifetime ban by the Securities and Exchange Commission. That was widely known PRIOR to the 2010 election when Horne, as a result of dubious dealings by (and all but certainly personally coordinating with) a Dark Money group, Horne edged out Rotellini.

That seems to invoke the adage that the people get the government they deserve. Or it would if he had not had to resort to cheating in order to win in 2010. One way or the other, it DOES invoke another adage, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." (That's the way the phrase went before George W Bush got confused and mangled it.


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