As Election Day draws near, the U.S. Senate race becomes more and more curious.
Now come allegations of "Watergate-style sleazy tricks," of "moles" recruited to spy on campaign activities. And those charges are followed by countercharges of a desperate, last-minute appeal by a candidate in trouble in the polls.Thursday, Democratic Rep. Wayne Owens said that a "mole" was recruited within his Washington, D.C., fund-raising office by an aide of Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, and that the "mole" passed along "hundreds of copies" of a campaign brochure to Hansen's people, perhaps passing along other campaign documents as well.
Owens says that the "mole" - former Owens chief East Coast fund-raiser Mark Linebaugh - flew to Utah in September and, while still on Owens' payroll, met secretly with GOP state chairman Bruce Hough to talk strategy about how to beat Owens. Owens says evidence of such skulduggery is that the brochure passed by Linebaugh to Hansen's aides is now being used in a bitter, unfair attack on him - all part of a Republican Party-Hansen-Bob Bennett "dirty-trick" conspiracy to drag Owens down just before the election.
Owens says he's angry and saddened to even have to talk about these things.
Republicans are angry, too - about Owens' allegations - and some think Owens has lost his mind.
Hansen aides say Owens' charges are blown out of proportion. "I'm really disappointed in Wayne, I can't believe the desperation the guy must have in the last five days of the campaign to come up with this kind of cheap shot," said Hansen.
Hough says he's never been involved in any of what Owens claims. He offered to take a lie detector test to prove he never met and doesn't know Linebaugh - the "mole" - and says that Owens has "gone off the edge."
"I can't comment until I have had time to digest Owens' statement more. I am being accused of criminal activity, and it is ridiculous," Linebaugh told the Deseret News from his home in northern Virginia. However, Linebaugh said he did give Hansen's aide the brochure, adding that it was a public document because Owens had used it in fund raising already. (Linebaugh has flown to Utah and has scheduled a Friday afternoon press conference, after Deseret News deadlines).
During a press conference, Owens admitted that he has no direct evidence that Bennett, Owens' Republican opponent in a bitter U.S. Senate race, had anything to do with actually obtaining the brochure from Owens' D.C. office. But, Owens says, Bennett is clearly part of the group that's "skillfully coordinating a barrage" of "attention-getting, but defamatory" mass mailings sent to undecided voters and those who support Owens.
Linebaugh clearly has no more love for Owens, saying Thursday that Owens is a "Kennedy liberal" who doesn't respresent the real views of Utah and Utahns should know it. He said he quit Owens' campaign because of sexual harassment in Owens' office - a personnel matter Owens declined to talk about.
As further proof that a dirty-tricks campaign is being waged against him, Owens said:
- That someone illegally entered his South Salt Lake offices earlier this year. - That a previously reported burglary of his D.C. fund-raising office - originally thought to be a common crime - may not now be so easily explained.
- That Owens' draft record, legally considered private material, was mailed anonymously to Deseret News Political Editor Bob Bernick Jr. (Such a letter was mailed to Bernick.)
- That the campaign offices of Joe Cannon, Bennett's GOP primary opponent, were apparently broken into, with a man claiming to be a Bennett campaign employee later calling Cannon campaign manager Jim Young to apologize for the act.
- And that someone tried to get into Cannon's campaign computers via a keyboard at 3 a.m. one morning when no staffers were present. (Young basically confirms the last two incidents reported by Owens but points out there was never any evidence that Bennett or his staffers had anything to do with those problems.)
Put all together, Owens' claims bear investigation. Owens says he puts all such dirty-trick matters on the table now to let the public decide what to think.
Hough said Owens' claims are really just an attempt to somehow bring up Bennett's Watergate past - complete with 1992 versions of break-ins, moles and clandestine meetings - in a sorry attempt to hide how two-faced his own Eastern brochure makes him look.
Owens said he decided to come forward with the information now, even though events involving the brochure took place more than six weeks ago, for two reasons.
One, Owens' aide Mark Krusko says Linebaugh told him that after he (Linebaugh) met with GOP Utah chairman Hough, Hough told Linebaugh that Republicans would use the Eastern fund-raising brochure only if Owens closed to within 5 or 10 percentage points of Bennett. Owens says the race is that close now, and last week the brochure was unfairly and inaccurately used against him.
Two, Owens says that Bill Simmons, the Hansen aide "who recruited the mole," two days ago called Owens' chief D.C. staffer, Scott Kearin, and told Kearin that embarrassing information "about a personnel matter within my office - unrelated to any of this (the brochure issue)" would come to light in Utah before Election Day. Owens says he took Simmons' comments to Kearin as a threat of more "dirty tricks" ahead, and so decided to go public with everything now.
Owens' charges and the Republicans' answers:
Did an aide to Jim Hansen recruit a "mole" in Owens' D.C. fund-raising office, paying the individual back for obtaining campaign material by trying to get him a lobbying job?
Hansen aide Simmons says he did indeed earlier this year talk to Linebaugh, a friend of his who was then Owens' top D.C. fund-raiser, about getting a single copy of a brochure Owens had used in East Coast fund-raising efforts. (The Deseret News obtained a copy of the brochure from a citizen in Emery County, unrelated to the Hansen campaign, and Deseret News Washington correspondent Lee Davidson wrote a story on the brochure that was published Sept. 3.)
Linebaugh later quit Owens' campaign. At Simmons' request, Hansen did call the National Cattlemen's Association on behalf of Linebaugh when Linebaugh applied for a job with the association.
Said Simmons: "This is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard. This makes Ross Perot's allegations about dirty tricks to ruin his daughter's wedding look like peanuts."
Simmons says only a grain of truth is in some of the charges made against him by Owens. He said he did talk to Owens aide Kearin but made no threats; said Linebaugh gave him one copy of the brochure but that he did not pass it on to party officials in Utah; and said Hansen did make a call to help Linebaugh's job search. Simmons denies ever recruiting Linebaugh as a political spy. He says Linebaugh is just a friend.
About the phone call to Kearin - where Owens charges Simmons made threats that Republicans would use the "personnel matter" - Simmons said, "Scott and I are friends and periodically call about different matters. . . . I told him, `I heard a rumor out there that people know about problems in your office,' " he said.
Simmons said Linebaugh did give him one copy of the pamphlet - but not hundreds as Owens charges. "But those pamphlets were everywhere back here. It's printed material. I didn't give it to the party."
Simmons said when Linebaugh quit working for Owens, he tried to help him in his job search because they are friends - not as any payment for any spying.
Hansen says he called the Cattlemen's Association on behalf of Linebaugh as a favor for Simmons but that he's never met Linebaugh and didn't know at the time he'd worked for Owens.
Did Linebaugh meet secretly with GOP chairman Hough and strate-gize about how to beat Owens, then return to Owens' D.C. fund-raising staff?
Hough said, "categorically, I have never met this Mark Linebaugh, don't know who he is, never met with him back here." He offered to take a lie detector test to prove what he's saying.
Hough said he received an anonymous mailing, postmarked from Virginia, with "perhaps a dozen" copies of Owens' brochure inside. "Now the Republican Senate Committee (an arm of the Republican National Committee) is using them. But I had nothing to do with that. Those guys don't consult me before they do a mailing."