Call it dueling spin control with a family-feud twist - meaning it's nasty.
After Joe Waldholtz pleaded guilty Wednesday to bank, tax and campaign fraud, he gave reporters not-so-subtle hints that he will tell prosecutors damaging information about his ex-wife's possible involve-ment in those crimes.So Rep. Enid Greene, R-Utah, later called a press conference - where she referred questions to her attorney to answer - contending Waldholtz's plea agreement actually helps prove that everything she has said is correct, and she is guilty of nothing.
She also said no one should believe anything Waldholtz says anyway because he is a liar. "Joe told me he loved me and that his grandmother was the most important person in the world to him - and yet he stole the money that she was going to retire on."
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors - apparently not buying either argument yet that Greene is guilty or innocent - say they are continuing their investigation.
In Greene's press conference, she said the plea agreement Waldholtz signed "in every way supports and validates what I told the public last December about the truth of what happened in this sorry state of affairs - and I did not know what Joe was doing."
It indeed supports the general outline of events Waldholtz has provided previously, but the document carefully sidesteps saying whether or what Greene knew about the crimes.
An example comes in the section where Waldholtz admits the felony of assisting in filing a false tax return - a return that Greene filed individually in 1993 after their marriage.
To help her avoid taxes on $39,000 of capital gains from stocks she sold, Waldholtz admitted telling Greene he would give her stock he had that had a long-term loss of $56,000 to wipe out the tax liability. The stock never existed.
The plea agreement says, "Joseph Waldholtz knew that Enid Waldholtz would use the false information in preparing her 1993 tax return and that the information would create a false capital loss." It does not say whether Greene also knew it was false.
Her attorney, Charles Roistacher, said that she didn't. However, Waldholtz did not give Greene written proof or certificates about the stock gift.
Roistacher said, "Joseph Waldholtz provided false information to his wife about a stock transaction. And she wrote that right down on a schedule and signed it and filed it."
The plea agreement did not address failure by the couple to file a joint tax return in 1994. Greene has said Waldholtz had promised to take care of it, but she realized later that she couldn't remember ever signing a return.
Federal prosecutor William Lawler III told reporters that taxes are one area the continuing investigation will likely examine - even though Roistacher said Greene has satisfied prosecutors in that area and on bank fraud, but Lawler said "open questions" still exist on her campaign financing.
Waldholtz's plea agreement also carefully avoids saying what Greene may have known about those campaign finances.
In it, Waldholtz admits illegally funneling $1.8 million obtained from Greene's father, D. Forrest Greene, into Enid's 1994 campaign.
Enid has said she thought the couple had enough money to legally provide those funds. She has said she thought some of the money she knew was coming from her father was a "swap for assets" - which likely would have made it a legal campaign source - although her father said he thought they were loans, which would have made them an illegal campaign source.
Greene in a five-hour press conference in December also acknowledged some possible minor campaign law violations by herself - including paying a consultant from a personal checking account and not reporting additional campaign bank accounts on disclosure forms.
Questions have also arisen over a 1992 arrangement - without involvement by Waldholtz - in which she funded an unsuccessful campaign that year with money her father gave her in advance of buying back a house he had earlier given her. The sale and title transfer were not completed until long after the election.
Greene described that as a "sale of an asset over time" last December, but Federal Election Commission officials said receiving money before a sale could be considered a campaign loan - which would have exceeded personal loan and donation limits - but that is something the full FEC would have to decide.
Joe dropped hints that he would provide evidence against his wife and apologized to virtually everyone except her after his conviction Wednesday.
His attorneys added he would not answer any questions about her possible involvement until after he is interviewed about that by prosecutors, as his plea bargain requires. Prosecutors noted that any leniency in sentencing likely hinges on how fully and honestly he cooperates in those interviews.
Roistacher said Greene isn't worried about that, however.
"Nothing that he would say would surprise anybody. He has been a liar, as we have discovered now, since high school," he said. "No one in their right mind would attach any credibility whatsoever to what Joseph Philip Waldholtz has to say. We do not worry about it."
A tidbit that might help is Waldholtz's acknowledgment in court Wednesday - as the judge was determining whether he was competent to plead guilty - that he has been treated previously for mental illness.
However, he said the last treatment had been "several months ago," so District of Columbia Federal District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson ruled he was competent to enter his plea.