May 22, 2013

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Courage shown in speaking up against John Swallow [KSL]

May 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The following is an op-ed piece that I wrote for KSL as posted this afternoon.

 

John Swallow

SALT LAKE CITY — I’m sure there was a moment when Traci Gundersen wondered if making a bar complaint against Utah Attorney General John Swallow was a wise step for her career.

As far as I can tell, she’s the only person who has been inside the attorney general’s office and has come forward to call “foul” on the attorney general.Unlike others who have publicly accused Swallow of wrongdoing in recent months, Gundersen is unique in that she is not under indictment, in jail or anonymous. In other words, unlike other Swallow accusers, she seems like an honest person with nothing to gain by the claim. Rather, she is a reputable and upstanding attorney who worked in the Utah attorney general’s office during Mark Shurtleff’s term.

Not only has she worked in the attorney general’s office — where she was when Swallow was first brought on by Shurtleff to be groomed as his successor — but her work there caught the attention of others in state government and she was lured away to a job as director of the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. Her job, from 2010 to until last week, when she left the office voluntarily, was to protect Utahns against scam artists and pyramid schemes.

A longtime employee of the state and a well-respected attorney, she must have known that accusing the state’s chief legal officer of violating the attorney/client relationship — one of the most important tenets of the legal profession — would put her on dangerous footing.

Unlike Jeremy Johnson, who is under indictment, accused of a litany of scams, Gunderson is an attorney in good standing with the Utah Bar.

Unlike Marc Sessions Jenson, who is currently interned at the Utah State Prison for failing to pay $4 million in restitution for scams, Gundersen has nothing to gain by attacking Swallow.

But she does have everything to lose.

By taking her complaint straight to the Utah Bar, a body that has the ability to discipline, disbar or impose sanctions on any member of the Utah Bar — including Swallow — she added yet another dimension to the layers of Swallow’s difficulties. Swallow will now need to undergo review by the Utah Bar Association.

With everything to lose, and nothing to gain, Gundersen’s bar complaint, filed quietly and without fanfare, is an act of true courage.

What makes Gundersen’s charge against Swallow so compelling is that it lies in an event that Swallow does not deny. On the contrary, in an interview with Doug Wright, Swallow said, on the air, that he was “proud” of the phone call.

The event in question is a recorded conversation between Swallow and what City Weekly described as “the owner of a telemarketing sales floor” by the name of Aaron Christner.

Recorded while Swallow was still running for attorney general — and still collecting checks for his campaign — Swallow is heard promising to take over the Utah Division of Consumer Protection — housed in the Utah Department of Commerce — and move it into the attorney general’s office.

What makes the call suspect is that at the time the Division of Consumer Protection already had a $400,000 civil penalty imposed on Christner and his business partner Ryan Jensen, as well as an order to cease and desist operations. Further, the Division of Consumer Protection was Swallow’s client, which Swallow readily acknowledged during the call. As his client, Swallow was under a duty not only to tell them that he had been contacted by Christner, the target of their efforts, but to consult with the division on how it would want to proceed.

In the real world, clients give direction on how to proceed with a case to their attorneys, not the other way around. Sure, attorneys know the law, but they cannot act without consulting with their client.

To collect on the penalty, the division referred the case against Christner, and the $400,000 penalty and cease and desist order, to Assistant Attorney General Jeff Buckner, who filed a case with the 2nd District Court in late 2011. However, Christner and Jensen were difficult to find, and throughout early 2012 the division continued to look for them.

Meanwhile, in defiance of the cease and desist order, Christner and Jensen opened another telemarketing company, the last of several proxy companies they are accused of using to hide alleged scams.

Meanwhile, during this time the Republican nomination battle to replace Shurtleff as attorney general was in full swing, and an associate of Christner’s suggested that he should get in contact with Swallow, specifically to attend a fundraising breakfast at Mimi’s Cafe. Christner took the advice to heart and called Swallow, then chief deputy attorney general under Shurtleff with oversight of “the civil divisions and all litigation involving the state of Utah.”

After a few preliminary questions, including Christner informing Swallow that he was being pursued by the Division of Consumer Protection for $400,000 in civil penalties, Swallow offers to help Christner sit down with Shurtleff and then bashes into the Division of Consumer Protection, his own client:

“(T)he way Utah’s so dysfunctional right now, is the client is the Department of Commerce and Consumer Protection, and that is something we, uh, control or even influence greatly, it’s because the work for the governor’s office, and now when I’m attorney general you know, this is kind of confidential, I will try to restructure it so consumer protection is under the attorney general (office) and the attorney general has more authority over those investigations. In fact, complete authority over that,” said Swallow, according to the complaint.

If you can’t tell, Swallow is telling Christner that while Swallow can’t do anything now — because Swallow’s client is the Division of Consumer Protection and they’re calling the shots — once he’s in charge, he’ll flip the relationship and start telling them who they can and cannot pursue.

It’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The lawyer will take over the client’s organization and start calling the shots.

But that’s not even the rub, not yet. Swallow never told his client — the Division of Consumer Protection — that he had had a conversation with the guy that they had been chasing. The first they heard about it was from the newspaper when City Weekly published the recording of the conversation online.

If you’re looking for a rule — and I know you are — look no further than Rule 1.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which requires that an attorney “inform” the client and “consult with the client about the means by which the client’s objectives are to be accomplished.”

Clearly, Swallow has not consulted nor informed his client of relevent and important communications with an accused malfactor.

Worse, Swallow is expressing an interest in the outcome of the case, a clear violation of another rule, that of Rule 1.8(i):

(i) A lawyer shall not acquire a proprietary interest in the cause of action or subject matter of litigation the lawyer is conducting for a client.

In this case, Swallow has been introduced to Christner through a fundraising function, has explained that when he is elected he will attempt a take-over of the government agency that is chasing Christner, and seeking political favor for the action.

If exchanging political contributions for a desired outcome in violation of the law is not a proprietary interest, I don’t know what is. Whatever it is, it isn’t honest.

And the complaint goes on.

Gundersen has now done what no honest person has yet done: she’s made a claim and backed it up by filing charges with the appropriate body. She’s put her name, and her reputation, on the line against a powerful man with powerful friends. Whether it results in moving the Utah Bar to take action against Swallow remains to be seen, but what is not in doubt is her courage.

I hope more like her will step forward in coming weeks and months. It’s time for the attorney general’s office to move out from under the cloud of scandal and restore its integrity, and I fear that we won’t see it happen while the current occupant retains his office.

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Appointing versus Electing the Attorney General

March 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Senator wants Utah to look at appointing attorney general The Salt Lake TribuneTo avoid the influence of cash on Utah’s chief law enforcement office, Senator Todd Weiler wants the legislature to look into amending the Utah  constitution to allow for an appointed attorney general. With Utah’s long history of flawed AGs, perhaps it’s an idea we should take seriously.

 

During the Utah Legislative Session, ended last week, members of the legislature were largely taciturn on the Swallow scandal, preferring to reserve judgement until the FBI investigation into Swallow wraps and the facts are clear. Regardless, the legislature passed two pieces of legislation addressing, if indirectly, the Swallow scandal.

The first, Senate Bill 83 sponsored by Senator Todd Weiler, addressed employees of the Utah Attorney General’s office accepting outside consulting work–as Swallow has said he did for a Nevada cement project.

The second bill, pushed through on the last day of the session, though with none of the opposition that other last minutes bills have seen in the past, was Senator Peter Knudson’s Senate Bill 289. It aimed to move investigatory power from the Attorney General to the Lieutenant Governor when elections complaints were filed against the AG. While prompted by the Alliance for a Better Utah complaint about Swallow to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, both legislators and staffers went to lengths to point out that the bill was to remove a weakness in the law, not target Swallow.ada cement project after appointment by then Attorney General Mark Shurtleff.

Appointment by Supreme Court or Governor is a good idea

money-and-justice-scalesEven with these two changes in the law–one putting the same restrictions on political appointees as exist on state employees and the other preventing the AG from investigating himself–Weiler believes further changes may be necessary to avoid a repeat of the same problems.

“The discussion is: As an elected official in a statewide race, we’re asking these candidates to run around and ask people for political donations,” Weiler said to the Salt Lake Tribune. “If someone was appointed, we’d take that entirely out of the process. We wouldn’t have the chief law enforcement officer asking people for money.”

In an 2011 proposal for the same, State Senator Steve Urquhart  said that it could get better attorneys into the AG’s office:

“[...] maybe we would get a better-qualified attorney than we tend to get and we might get an attorney with an approach that is consistently on the merits of the issues rather than on the basis of politics or something else.”

Currently, only seven states have appointed attorney generals. The Salt Lake Tribune lists those states as Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wyoming, citing the National Association of Attorney Generals.

6TXZ_Sup_Ct_Lg

In Tennessee, the state Supreme Court appoints the attorney general, which I find particularly interesting, especially given how Utah’s justices join the bench. Unlike many states, Utah’s Supreme Court justices are not elected but serve ten-year renewable terms after appointment by the governor and confirmation by the state senate. As result, Utah’s Supreme Court has avoided much of the politicization that plagues other states. Not beholden to campaign donations, Utah tends to have justices who are better known for the legal acumen than their political connections.

This kind of process can prove useful for an AG appointment in two ways:

  1. Appointment by the Governor: similar to selection for the Utah Supreme Court, selection of the AG would be based on merit and subject to an “advise and consent” process by the state senate. The process could be further depoliticized by including a vetting process by the Utah Bar Association.
  2. Appointment by the Supreme Court: already less beholden by virtue of their appointment and independence as a separate branch of government, an appointment by the Supreme Court would carry additional levels of review and detachment from the political process, allowing selection of a person without need of review of political bona fides.

There’s no way that politics will be completely removed from the process, but an appointment–either by the governor with consent of the senate or by the Supreme Court–would remove the politics from the Utah Attorney General’s office.

 Swallow opposes, makes “Bandwagon” argument

SwallowNot surprisingly, Swallow, with nothing to fall back upon if he loses his job, does not support the idea. To the Salt Lake Tribune

“The attorney general is the guardian of the public interest and should be independent and provide legal advice based on the law instead of political pressure,” Swallow said. “Utah is one of 43 states where the attorney general is elected by popular vote and this process ensures the attorney general is the lawyer for all Utah citizens.”

 

In case you missed that, Swallow implied that there’s less political pressure on someone who needs to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to get elected (as he did) than there is on someone who is appointed. (Swallow also wins Logical Fallacy of the Day with his “Bandwagon” appeal to popularity as a validation of his position).

Not the first time…

220px-Mark_ShurtleffAs I noted earlier, this isn’t the first time that someone has suggested we look at moving to appointment of the AG. Given Shurtleff’s history.  Urquhart proposed looking into the idea in 2011.

“I also think it’s much cleaner if the guy making prosecutorial decisions isn’t out soliciting money from people who could be impacted by those decisions,” Urquhart said in a Salt Lake Tribune article at the time.

Then Attorney General Mark Shurtleff opposed the idea, touting the independence that comes with election. Of course, he had his own problems. During his term, Shurtleff was regularly pilloried by the City Weekly for receiving contributions from questionable donors, including the same ones who helped get Swallow elected and some of which are now under federal investigation.

Paul Rolly has also in his column told a short history of Utah’s attorney generals, and few escape some kind of scandal. With Utah’s history, perhaps it is time we change how we think about the office of the attorney general. It’s cliche to talk about lawyers,politicians, sharks, snakes and leeches in the same breath, but do we need to add to the taint of corruption and make the cliche real?

In 1998, the Utah Supreme Court was moved into...

In 1998, the Utah Supreme Court was moved into the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I like Weiler’s request, echoing Urquhart’s suggestion in years past, that the legislature look into changing the Utah constitution to provide for a more independent attorney general uncorrupted by the taint of political contributions. Utahns should be able to look to their attorney general as their advocate, regardless of whether they have been able to donate to his campaign.

Swallow has been accused by three businessmen of soliciting donations in return for protection. Regardless of the truth of the accusations, changing the nature of the selection of the attorney general would remove the possibility that prosecutorial decisions are tainted by money.

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Why didn’t Shurtleff tell voters what he knew about Swallow before the election?

February 14, 2013 by 4 Comments

220px-Mark_ShurtleffIn the days before the general election in 2012, Mark Shurtleff was putting out fires around town. His protege, John Swallow, was on track to win the election against Democrat Dee Smith, as Shurtleff and Swallow had long-planned, but cracks were appearing in the otherwise flawless campaign strategy. Shurtleff, his legacy on the line in the successful transfer to his protegé, was busy meeting with indicted businessmen, the feds, and Swallow himself.

As Shurtleff later described, he was “upset” by the allegations, enough so that he took them to the U.S. Attorney and the FBI.  Was Swallow promising protection from prosecution in return for campaign contributions? Was Swallow embroiled in a scheme to bribe Nevada Senator Harry Reid?

The more information that trickles out, the more questions seem to be raised. This week, in addition to more accusations against Swallow, Shurtleff admitted on Monday said that he knew as early as October, but somehow failed to tell the public, the press, or even to suggest to Swallow that he should pull out of the race.

When and what did Shurtleff know? Who did he tell?

According to Swallow, Shurtleff never asked him to pull out of the race, despite a report that Shurtleff said he would speak to Swallow about it.

In a January 11, 2013 article, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Jeremy Johnson met with then Utah Attorney General Shurtleff on October 30, 2012.  The general election was just days away, and Swallow was leading in the polls.

The two (Shurtleff and Johnson) met the next day outside a Salt Lake City Gateway condo, where Johnson was staying, Johnson said. He told Shurtleff about Swallow’s deal and that the information would come out soon. He urged Shurtleff to press Swallow to drop out. Shurtleff said it was unlikely Swallow would quit at that late date, according to Johnson, but Shurtleff agreed to speak to Swallow about the allegations.

Swallow said Shurtleff didn’t talk to him about getting out of the race.

SwallowSwallow told the Salt Lake Tribune that he had never discussed getting out of the race with Shurtleff.

Tribune: Did you have a meeting with Jeremy at the end of October where he encouraged you to drop out of the attorney general’s race? If so, where was it? What was the nature and outcome of the meeting? Did Mark discuss the issue with you? Did you consider dropping out?

Swallow: No, I did not have a meeting with Mr. Johnson in October or November. Mark Shurtleff has never discussed my dropping out of the race with me and I never considered dropping out of the race. In April or May, I believe, I had a conversation with Jeremy where he may have suggested I drop out of the race. I thought the remark was ridiculous and did not give it any consideration.

Reading the Swallow’s words carefully, it seems clear that he knew that Shurtleff had met with Johnson and likely the substance of their conversation, but that Shurtleff had not discussed the possibility that Swallow would pull out of the race for his behavior.

Meanwhile, Shurtleff was having other conversations, including with feds at the US Attorney’s office. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Shurtleff said that

“Obviously, I’m very upset by [the allegations against Swallow]. I was upset enough to go down and talk to the U.S. attorney and the FBI on a couple of occasions,” Shurtleff said in an interview. “This is my friend, my chief deputy. Am I [feeling] somewhat guilty? Am I betraying him? But I felt that the proper authorities needed to know.”

Given the proximity to the general election, one cannot help but wonder if the “proper authorities” should have included the voters of Utah. If Shurtleff was “upset,” why not let the public know? Surely his duty as an officer of the court requires that he put the judging authority–in this case the public–on notice that a candidate for public office was then, or would be soon, under investigation by the FBI for corruption.

 

Game Changing Information

That Shurtleff knew about Swallow’s accusers before the election and told no one but the feds and Swallow is no small act of subterfuge. At least one public official–Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives Becky Lockhart–told the Salt Lake Tribune that knowing would have changed her vote.

House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, said the more information about candidates, the better equipped voters are to make a decision, and she wishes the information involving Swallow would have been known before the election. If it had been known, she said, it could have made a difference in her vote.

“Attorney General Shurt­leff is going to have to answer those questions,” she said, “and he’s going to be accountable for those actions and why or why not he didn’t disclose that.”

Will Shurtleff be held accountable? Time only will show. On Monday, Shurtleff expressed hope that the investigation would wrap up soon so that people could move on. Given the extent of the charges and that more accusers continue to come forward, that seems less and less likely.  At best, it seems almost like wishful thinking.

Bagley cartoon Attorney General Spoiler Alert The Salt Lake Tribune

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Where there’s smoke: a brief history of John Swallow in headlines

January 17, 2013 by 10 Comments

John Swallow has a habit of making newspaper headlines, but for all the wrong reasons. If it’s true that where there is smoke there’s usually fire, then the headlines that have followed Swallow’s career indicate a lot of fire. Only time will tell how much or if it will catch up to Swallow this time around.

With calls for his resignation already circulating—the Daily Herald in Utah County called for Swallow to step down on Sunday and the Salt Lake Tribune and the St. George Spectrum followed—maybe it’s time to talk a walk down memory lane and recall that this isn’t his first time running afoul of the appearance of ethical behavior.

“SWALLOW DENIES ETHICS BREACHES”

Elected to serve in the state legislature for the first time in 1995, Swallow served three terms in the state legislature before stepping down in 2002 to run for Congress. Over the next two election cycles, Swallow challenged Jim Matheson to represent Utah’s Second Congressional District, falling short each time. It was during this time that Swallow was hit by accusations of questionable ethics.

With the election fast approaching and the Swallow campaign hoping to look good for national Republicans, Swallow found his campaign short on cash.

“That wouldn’t look good,” said Dave Hansen, former campaign manager for Orrin Hatch, was at the time working as Swallow’s campaign manager. “So John said he could loan the campaign $90,000, which would look good on the report’s cash-on-hand, and when the October campaign contributions started coming in, the campaign would repay that. And that’s exactly what we did. That money was never meant for the campaign and actually wasn’t spent on the campaign. To be honest, it was just to make the report look good.”

It’s not atypical for candidates to do this kind of thing, but the question that was left outstanding was: Where did Swallow get the money? While Rob Bishop borrowed money from a credit union during the same cycle to keep the campaign moving, Swallow allegedly sold artwork that he never reported owning in previous financial reports.

“It was all within my immediate family,” said Swallow. “And all legal and above board.”

With the source questionable, and the amount much higher than what Swallow had reported as his own personal assets just six months before, the headline in the Deseret News was glaring: SWALLOW DENIES ETHICS BREACHES. Swallow was later cleared of breaking the law when he admitted selling some paintings, cashing out checking and savings accounts, including an individual retirement account, to make the loans to his campaign.

With just a little bit of political sleight of hand, Swallow leveraged his assets to hide the state of his campaign until after the election.

Tricky, but, at least according to the FEC, legal.

 

SWALLOW EXAGGERATED HIS ROLE IN THE OBAMACARE LAWSUIT

During the run up to the Republican primary in 2012, Swallow painted himself at the forefront of the Obama Care lawsuit…or at least, his mailers did. In reality, the most Swallow did for the case was listen in on a few conference calls and attend oral arguments in a seat that he probably paid someone to stand in line for. Then, he took a taxpayer funded trip to DC to watch other lawyers argue the case and called home to his state to campaign on their coattails.

[…]Swallow was there…along with four hundred others, including attorneys from twenty-six states who were also on the lawsuit and observing the oral arguments that day.  Other than that, I could not find anything to indicate a more active role in the case. Other lawyers argued, other lawyers filed the briefs, and other lawyers responded to the judges questions.

Other than that, the most prominent mention that Swallow received was for a campaign call he made to 55,000 Utahns during his taxpayer funded trip to D.C. And Swallow did not appear happy about that mention.

“I have a right when I’m not working to do whatever I want to do,” Swallow said. “I have a right to campaign. I have a right to decide if I want to make something an official call or something to promote my candidacy.”  Truly the words of someone intensely focused on fighting Obamacare.

 

“MAILER ALLEGES UTAH AG CANDIDATE WAS INVESTIGATED BY FEDS”

Meanwhile, news surfaced that Swallow had been interviewed by the FBI in connection with a bid scandal helped start in Salt Lake County.  According to the article:

The flier, coming two weeks before Swallow’s June 26 GOP primary against attorney Sean Reyes, raises the issue of a contract dispute involving Salt Lake County and California-based Worldwide Environmental Products, which sought to provide emissions-testing equipment to garages in the county.

Awarding the three-year, $12 million contract turned into a bitter fight. Worldwide alleged the bid was rigged, and the attorney general’s office and, eventually, the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office became involved, according to interviews and records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

[…]

The target of the investigation is unclear. The FBI and U.S. attorney’s office would not comment.

Swallow denied that he was under investigation with a veritable tornado of robodials, mailers, and emails. But he was one of only three people interviewed or subpoenaed by the FBI in the matter. No one in Salt Lake County was interviewed in the investigation, which I find a little odd, since it was Salt Lake County’s bid process that was supposedly under investigation.

At the time I noted that “if the FBI had investigated Swallow for corruption, it would be a game changer. Who wants an Attorney General who is corrupt?”

To top it off, then Attorney General Mark Shurtleff went to bat for Swallow, accusing Swallow’s Republican opponent of illegally issuing the mailer. The next day, Shurtleff walked the accusation back when he realized that his accusation were likely defamatory and false.

But it was too late, the robodial had gone out, smearing Swallow’s opponent with outlandish exaggerations that didn’t stand on fact or law.

Meanwhile, I could not find anyone who actually saw the mailer. I was left to wonder if it had actually been issued to more than a few households, as well as who the real source of the mailer had been. It provided an excuse to attack Swallow’s opponent, but wasn’t really seen by many voters.

 

“AG Candidate Talks Of Taking Over Consumer Protection”

Then the City Weekly found evidence that Swallow was promising a quid pro quo for campaign donations.  In light of the allegations coming to light in recent weeks and a federal suit against many of Swallow’s donors filed this week, the City Weekly discovery is even more revealing, even if it didn’t stick to Swallow at the time. It sounded like a promise of quid pro quo.  You support my campaign, and I’ll protect you from enforcement.

[A]ccording to a tape-recorded conversation he had with the owner of a telemarketing sales floor, [John Swallow] has another plan he’s been less vocal about—taking the agency that investigates consumer protection complaints away from the jurisdiction of the Governor’s Office and putting it under the control of the Attorney General’s Office.

“Now, this is kind of confidential, but when I’m the attorney general, I will try to restructure it so Consumer Protection is under the AG [office] and the attorney general has more authority over those investigations. In fact—complete authority over that,” Swallow is heard telling telemarketing-business owner Aaron Christner in an April 7 phone conversation.

Keep in mind that Swallow was making this statement to a member of an industry that has collectively donated $82,284 to his campaign. At least, that’s as much as was apparent then.

 

“Indicted businessman: Utah A.G. tied to alleged scheme”

And then there was this one, just last week.  With the family bible still warm where he placed his hand to be sworn in as attorney general of Utah, Swallow was in headlines again, this time for allegations that he participated in a scheme to help a Utah businessman avoid investigation by the feds by bribing Senator Harry Reid.

Embattled St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson says new Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped broker a deal in 2010 in which Johnson believed he was to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid $600,000 to make a federal investigation into Johnson’s company go away.

But when the federal government filed a lawsuit Johnson thought he had paid to quash, he demanded Swallow return some of the $250,000 initial payment. Then, just days before the Nov. 6 election, Johnson engaged in a frenetic but unsuccessful effort to get Swallow to drop out of the race, saying information about what Johnson called a “bribe” would come out and force the Republican’s resignation if he became attorney general.

The Salt Lake Tribune has an excellent article that provides a timeline of the scandal. As I mentioned earlier, the Daily Herald has called for Swallow’s resignation.

The allegations against Swallow have sufficient legs, even now before every detail has been uncovered, to justify his immediate resignation. His reputation is now seriously tainted, and that is an impossible thing to overcome for an attorney general.

Emails and secret recordings put Swallow in the thick of a possible bribery conspiracy. While Swallow denies doing anything technically illegal (which may or may not be true), it is clear that there is a substantial appearance of wrongdoing. That appearance alone is sufficient to cause any gentleman or statesman, let alone a state’s chief law enforcement officer, to step down for the good of the people.

From long, sad experience, we know that initial reports of this nature virtually always reveal the tip of an iceberg. Public officials caught in shady dealings always deny and deny and deny. And then with each successive public revelation they tend to get squeezed out of office.

Please spare us the pain, Mr. Swallow, and get out now. You can’t be trusted.

I tend to agree, though this is no surprise to people who have read this blog before. I do not trust John Swallow, and he has a history of walking the fine line, if not over that line, between what is ethical and what is not.

Is there more to come out? Almost certainly so. Where there is smoke, there is usually fire, and Swallow’s career—more focused on raising money by promising protection than on actually practicing law—has been shrouded by a lot of smoke. Who knows who else will be hit as the plot thickens around the Attorney General.

Until the smoke clears, though, it’ll be hard to see how bad the fire is and how much damage it has done to Utah and the reputation of the Attorney General’s office.

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Packing hygiene kits with the Utah Delegation

August 27, 2012 by 3 Comments

Utah House Speaker Becky Lockhart and others assist at the Utah delegation humanitarian project on Monday.

With tropical storm/hurricane Isaac crossing the Gulf of Mexico, the schedule for the Republican National Convention was abbreviated today, but that doesn’t mean Utah’s delegates weren’t busy. This morning, after a breakfast honoring Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican Party organized a humanitarian service project for delegates packing hygiene kits for use in any areas affected by the Isaac storm system.

“When we heard about hurricane Isaac, we decided to turn a negative into a positive,” said Thomas Wright, Utah Republican Party Chairman. Although it’s become something of a tradition for Utah Republicans to do a service project during the national convention–they did one in St. Paul in 2008, too–Wright said that the delegates planned on assembling back to school kits for children in need later in the week and only threw together this additional project in the last few days. The materials in the kits were donated by Utah business leader Fred Lampropoulous and Merit Medical.

Including toothpaste, toothbrushes, towels, soap, and other sundry items, the kits were quickly assembled by volunteers that included Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in a t-shirt, several legislators in dressed down to work, Speaker Rebecca Lockhart with her sleeves rolled up, and, in addition to the members of the Utah delegation, members of the Arizona, California and Hawaii delegations who dropped in to help. Energy was high, and some delegates broke out in an

impromptu and slightly off-key version of the BYU fight song (a version that Chairman Wright, a Ute, said was “out-of-order”). Later, a member of the Hawaii delegation led the room in “God Bless America.”

The kits are to be given to LDS Charities locally and, with Isaac shifting from a tropical storm to a potentially category 2 hurricane as it approaches the Gulf coast near New Orleans, may even be distributed later this week.

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Where there’s smoke, or an FBI investigation…

June 15, 2012 by 7 Comments

Yesterday, Democrat’s allegations that John Swallow was investigated by the FBI for corruption hit the Salt Lake Tribune, and almost immediately, I was hit by a storm of emails and a robodial telling me the allegations were false. Not one of them featured a single word from the candidate himself.

I know John Swallow has his career and his election on the line, but really: his campaign should first verify the allegations they’re making before spreading them so far and wide.

Here’s what happened:

A political ad that will hit Republican voters’ mailboxes this week makes a dramatic allegation — that GOP attorney general candidate John Swallow was the target of a federal investigation for intervening in a Salt Lake County bid process.

At first glance, I’m peeved that a Democrat is attacking Swallow. We’re in a Republican Primary, after all. As I read on, though, I’m more than a little surprised that something so serious would be alleged, even by Democrats. Attacking an Assistant AG  for being under investigation by the FBI, even one with as little experience as John Swallow, is over the top unless there is evidence to back it up.

The flier, coming two weeks before Swallow’s June 26 GOP primary against attorney Sean Reyes, raises the issue of a contract dispute involving Salt Lake County and California-based Worldwide Environmental Products, which sought to provide emissions-testing equipment to garages in the county.

Awarding the three-year, $12 million contract turned into a bitter fight. Worldwide alleged the bid was rigged, and the attorney general’s office and, eventually, the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office became involved, according to interviews and records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

A grand jury was convened to hear testimony relating to the contract. Swallow, Assistant Attorney General Alan Bachman and Bachman’s paralegal were subpoenaed to testify. But the case was apparently scrapped at the last minute; the grand jury did not convene.

The target of the investigation is unclear. The FBI and U.S. attorney’s office would not comment.

The article goes on. After Worldwide’s lobbyist pressed for an inquiry, the AG’s office contacted Salt Lake County.  The story indicates that Bachmann and Swallow then called the Salt Lake County attorneys with responsibility for the bidding process and mentioned an investigation into the bid process if Worldwide was not given another opportunity. Both Salt Lake County attorneys claim they were threatened.

Bachman told The Tribune that there was a misunderstanding and that he made no such threat, pointing to an email after his call in which he stressed that the state may investigate, not that it would.

At this point, the Salt Lake District Attorney, Sim Gill, said enough is enough. If the bid process is bad, let’s have a real investigation, and he called the FBI.

“If there’s corruption, we want to find it. We want an objective, transparent look at this,” Gill said. “If you call here and make such accusations, then you know what? Be prepared. We’ll pick up the phone [to the FBI] and say, ‘Investigate us, investigate them, investigate everyone else, whoever is involved in this process.’ ”

At the end of the day, the only people interviewed or subpoenaed by the FBI were John Swallow (who did not comment in the story), Alan Bachman, and Bachman’s paralegal. No one in Salt Lake County was interviewed in the investigation into the bid process, which I find a little odd, since that’s the process that was supposedly, according to Bachman, in need of review.

Naturally, if the FBI had investigated Swallow for corruption, it would be a game changer. Who wants an Attorney General who is corrupt?

I get back to work, but it wasn’t the last I would hear about the story yesterday. I received, a third email at 1 PM, this time through the Utah Republican State Party and identical to the second in content, differing only in the Utah Republican Party headers and disclaimers on the bottom. At this point, it’s starting to feel like a lot of email, almost overkill.

Then, at 8:53 PM, I receive a 45 second call from 801-386-9074, the John Swallow campaign phone number. It’s a robodial of a recording of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. He starts by saying that he took an oath when he became attorney general. I can’t recall whether he said the oath was to be honest or to uphold the law, but both are similar and amount to the same thing. Then, speaking with some animation, he says that Sean Reyes and Democrats are telling lies so they can push their liberal agenda on Utah. This is a shock to me, since it’s very clear that the mailer is not coming from Sean Reyes, but from Democrat Dimitri Moumoulidis‘s Super PAC Ute PAC.

For all the emails and robodials, I still haven’t seen the mailer itself. I’m not sure I would have noticed the story, or at least not seen it so early, but for the attention the Swallow campaign has brought to it.

_________________________

English: Photograph of Mark Shurtleff

English: Photograph of Mark Shurtleff (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Conclusions? First, I find it a little unsettling that the chief law enforcement officer of the state is using phrases like “illegal” so blithely and easily.  Utah law, which the Attorney General correctly cites in all three emails, requires a number of things, not the least is that the person publishing the mailer must know that their statement is false.

A person may not knowingly make or publish, or cause to be made or published, any false statement in relation to any candidate, proposed constitutional amendment, or other measure, that is intended or tends to affect any voting at any primary, convention, or election.

I have yet to see anything that connects Sean Reyes to the Democratic Super PAC, and so it appears that Shurtleff is accusing Reyes of lying without evidence. It is highly inappropriate, especially for an officer of the court like the Attorney General.  While I know that passions during campaign season can get intense, I think the Attorney General, considering the amount of power he holds to investigate and prosecute the law, should be careful about slinging around legal terms that accuse people of crimes.

Further, if there is any truth to the mailer (and again, I have not seen it), a public vetting of John Swallow’s actions is appropriate. In a heavily conservative state like Utah, this is the election for Utah’s attorney general. It is unlikely that in a year like this one, with Mitt Romney on the ballot, a Democratic challenger is going to have a chance , short of a scandal and then it’ll need to be dramatic.

  • Did the John Swallow use his office to pressure Salt Lake County on behalf of Worldwide?
  • Was he investigated by the FBI?
  • Why wasn’t anyone but Swallow, Bachman, and Bachman’s paralegal interviewed?
  • If it’s nothing, why not tell us what was asked?
  • What did the FBI want to know badly enough to subpoena and interview just members of the Attorney General’s office?

Last observation: why haven’t we heard Swallow comment or deny the allegations? He is the only person, outside of the FBI, that has first hand knowledge of why he was interviewed by the FBI. Looking at Robert Gehrke’s article, the emails, and the phone call, though, I can’t find any statements from John Swallow. Even his campaign consultant Jason Powers, whose modus operandi is to stay behind the scenes, is quoted.

Why nothing from Swallow himself?

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Bank of America Gets Pad Locked After Homeowner Forecloses On It | digtriad.com

June 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Exterior Bank Signage | Bank Logo Branding | B...

Image by I-5 Design & Manufacture via Flickr

This is yesterday’s news, but it’s still a win for the small guy, and, frankly, hilarious.

It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn’t owe a dime on their home.

The couple said they paid cash for the house.

The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn’t owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay.

A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners’, Maurenn Nyergers and her husband.

The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on the Nyergers’ house.

So, how did it end with bank being foreclosed on?  After more than 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank’s assets.

via Bank of America Gets Pad Locked After Homeowner Forecloses On It | digtriad.com.

Meanwhile, closer to home, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is taking on the bank over illegal foreclosures in the state.  Check it here.

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