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October 20, 2006

Beauprez calls release of confidential information a public service


By KYLE HENLEY THE GAZETTE

DENVER - Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bob Beauprez said Friday a federal agent who may have broken the law to help his campaign is a “whistle-blower” who “performed an act of courage.”

Beauprez’s campaign is the subject of an FBI probe into whether information from the National Crime Information Center, a confidential law-enforcement database, was illegally passed to the Beauprez campaign, which used it in an attack ad against the Democratic candidate, Bill Ritter.

Beauprez, a congressman from suburban Denver, said he did nothing wrong.

On Friday, several news outlets reported that Cory Voorhis, a federal agent with


Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of the Homeland Security Department, was the individual who accessed the NCIC system and passed information to the Beauprez camp.

Federal investigators and Beauprez would not confirm whether Voorhis was the source, though Beauprez did say the man was a law enforcement official. Beauprez said his source “did the right thing.”

“Our source, in my opinion, performed a very great act of courage and public service by bringing this story to the public domain,” Beauprez said.

The investigation stems from a series of television ads run by the Beauprez campaign that have been critical of the job Ritter did while he was Denver district attorney. The ads highlighted 152 cases in which, Beauprez’s campaign claims, Ritter’s office helped immigrants — both legal and illegal — avoid deportation by offering plea bargains.

The campaign ran a television ad featuring Carlos Estrada Medina, who was arrested in Denver on drug charges and received probation under a plea agreement. The ad claims Medina was later arrested in California on charges of sexual abuse of a child.

Several media outlets investigated the ad and could not find any information about a California case involving Medina. Checks under his aliases also turned up nothing. But last weekend, John Marshall, a spokesman for the Beauprez campaign, told a Denver television that “in federal criminal databases, the guy’s information matches up.”

Ritter has countered that Beauprez’s campaign took the information regarding plea bargains out of context and Ritter’s campaign has gone on the offensive about the improper access to law enforcement records.

This week, it debuted a television advertisement which accuses Beauprez of “refusing to answer, hiding his sources and ducking responsibility.” The ad concludes, “If we can’t trust Beauprez to tell us the truth, how can we trust him to be governor?”

Beauprez countered that Ritter is ducking questions raised about the plea-bargain issue.

“To cover up his own policy of cutting deals with criminal aliens while jeopardizing the safety of Colorado families, Bill Ritter wants to destroy a person who had gotten a bellyful, saw a wrong and tried to make it right,” Beauprez said.

Evan Dreyer, Ritter’s spokesman, said Beauprez is the one engaged in a cover-up.

“The congressman is still trying to play by a different set of rules,” Dreyer said. “He cut corners, he cheated and that is unacceptable. You cannot run a political campaign, one based on accountability, by using information that was illegally obtained.”

John Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University, said Beauprez’s strategy of defending the informant and attacking Ritter won’t play well with voters.

“I don’t know if it is tactical or not, but it has a tone of desperation,” Straayer said. “This was over the top. I think his prospects are fading by the day.”

Even longtime GOP operatives say the investigation has tarnished Beauprez’s campaign and stripped it of one of the most potent arguments against Ritter.

“They’ve lost the substance of the charge and instead how they got the substance of the charge is the issue,” said Katy Atkinson, a GOP strategist. “It is clearly a negative and it hurts.”

The investigation was spearheaded by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. On Wednesday, CBI officials asked the FBI to join the case because a federal database is involved.