Martinez Staff Probes Memo Origin -WP

The office of Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) is investigating whether an aide who resigned this week distributed a memo about the Terri Schiavo case to other Senate offices, and whether any other aides in the senator's office had seen it, his staff said yesterday.

A Martinez aide who refused to be named said the departed aide, counsel Brian H. Darling, "may have disseminated to other offices" a memo that discussed the political ramifications of intervening in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged Floridian who died last month after she was taken off a feeding tube. The memo said it was "a great political issue" and "a tough issue for Democrats."

Kerry Feehery, Martinez's communications director, said she could not answer a question about the possible roles of other senior aides. "We're still investigating this matter internally, and we aren't going to comment further at this time," Feehery said.

Martinez said in a statement Wednesday night that one staff member "was unilaterally responsible for this document." He said the memo "was not approved by me or any other member of my staff, nor were we aware of its existence until very recently." Martinez said in an interview that until Wednesday, he had been reassured by aides that his office had not been involved.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35324-2005Apr7.html

What a gutless COWARD!?

coordinating their talking points again! I'm thinking the only way to get to the bottom (or top, as it were) of this story is to put Karl Rove under oath and ask him what he knows about all this.

The dog ate my memo!

Martinez pulls it out of his pocket, hands it to Tom Harkin, and he knows NOTHING!

I'm with you, Steve!



As atrios points out, assrocket continues to beat the dead horses. It gets more hilarious by the day, their back-tracking, circular finger-pointing, and blaming.

when he handed the memo to Sen. Harkin on the Senate floor. "Senator Harkin, I am not aware of the existence of what I am giving you because of my persistent vegetative state. I have no idea how I came to possess it, or even if I possess it. Someone else, I don't know who, and I may or may not be able to identify him or it later, is unilaterally responsible for this. He or it has taken over my cortex-less brain. A demon that's it! I'm possessed! I need an exorcism! Get me the Pope, oh . . . get me Cardinal Law, get me Randall Terry. Memo, what memo? Here, hold my tube." Culture of brazen lying. Government of Bozos.

Don't sign your name to it, don't take credit for it, but make sure the team gets the message. I'm sure Martinez had nothing to do with it, he takes his marching orders from his aides :eyes: ....Republican aides must be the real players in Congress, the Reps and Senators are just along to shake down lobbyists and rubber stamp whatever Bush wants.

Brian Darling
( former General Counsel for U.S. Senator Robert C. Smith)
is a native of Andover, Massachusetts. Although educated in Massachusetts, he has spent a majority of his professional career in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Brian Darling is licensed to practice law in Virginia, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.
Brian Darling is a Partner in a lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group. The Alexander Strategy Group is a full-service lobbying and public affairs firm. Prior to his current position, Brian most served as General Counsel to former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H. and was a chief Senate strategist for legislation passed last year that allowed commercial airline pilots to carry firearms in flight. In January 2000, Brian and Senator Smith visited the home where Cuban refugee Elian Gonzales was staying and later crafted legislation to grant him permanent residency. Following the 2000 presidential elections, Brian went to Florida and worked on the Bush-Cheney recount team where he was successful in challenging numerous ballots and protecting the integrity of the election process.
Brian co-chaired the Conservative Working Group, a weekly legislative strategy meeting of conservative staff members in both the House and the Senate. He has continued with another coalition the Citizens for Conservative Government (CCG) which he currently is the co-chairman. He also served as a counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee and as an aide to former Senators Paul Coverdell, R-Georgia and Steve Symms, R-Idaho.
Brian serves as Director of Government Affairs on the Board of Directors of VOTORS. In his spare time he plays hockey, softball and golf. Brian is also on the Board of Directors of the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance.
http://www.votors.org/content.aspx?ccategoryid=24&acctid=105

The Harbour Group, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of SBSF that develops public relations campaigns, crisis communications tactics, and legislative strategies for business clients nationwide. Members of THG have held prominent positions in both houses of Congress and in the White House, and have extensive experience working with the media. They have strong working relationships with key decision-makers in all branches of the government, with the media, and with third-party groups such as consumer advocates and labor organizations. Through this combination of experience and expertise, the group provides a powerful advantage in shaping the development of legislative and policy strategies that impact clients' business objectives. The Harbour Group is uniquely positioned to tackle the most complex policy initiatives and communications campaigns at the national, state, and local level.
http://www.harbourgrp.com/news_pr_013003.html

"We have provided access to key Members of Congress and staff and helped the client develop the messaging and materials they need to turn congressional contacts into legislative support."
-- The Harbour Group
http://www.harbourgrp.com/ab_prac_legstrat.html

"The fundamental components of each campaign are shrewd thinking to establish the client's strategic direction, persuasive message development, and fast-track implementation to ensure the client is 'first to market" with its story.'
-- The Harbour Group
http://www.harbourgrp.com/ab_prac_pr.html

Together, The Alexander Strategy Group and The Harbour Group offer unparalleled access to Washington decision makers on both sides of the aisle. With decades of senior-level experience formulating public policy and legislative strategy, The Alexander Strategy Group/The Harbour Group powerhouse provides the skills and tools needed to succeed in the nation’s capital. The individual members of our firms have built careers tackling complex policy initiatives and intricate communications campaigns.
We offer our clients a rare combination of veteran communicators, tested policy makers, and savvy strategists. Our team includes presidential advisors and high-ranking aides to Congressional leaders. We have worked on political campaigns, represented international governments and corporations, and conducted local, state and federal issue campaigns. Our government affairs work is supported by seasoned public relations counselors with expertise in coalition management, corporate positioning, media relations, merger and acquisition strategy, local and national event staging, product launches and issue advertising.
http://alexanderstrategy.com/alliance.asp

.... such as Brian Darling former legal aide to Senator Mel Martinez of Florida(R).

As Senator Martinez said the other day, "The court ordered decision to stop all nutirents and remove her feeding tube was made without any legal represenation of her interests. A federal habeas corpus proceeding will ensure her right to another hearing is followed before the court ordered decision to end her life is followed through."
Brian Darling, Martinez's chief counsel, told Drew Ryun, our Director of Governmental Affairs, that the Republican leadership is taking this bill very seriously. Oftentimes it takes weeks or months to get a piece of legislation to the floor for debate. Darling told the ACLJ that Republican leadership wants this measure on the floor by Monday or Tuesday of next week. There is a full court press going on right now on the legislative side to save Terri Schiavo. Republican staffers have told the ACLJ that this issue is garnering bi-partisan support.
http://www.aclj.org/News/Readwr.aspx?ID=1293

Brian Darling with the Alexander Strategy Group also worked on the armed pilots legislation as counsel for former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.).
"We won because we had a strong message, we had a diverse coalition and a great issue," Darling observed. "It provides a good roadmap on how to win on conservative legislation."
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200301/POL20030131b.html
(Incidentally CNS is part and parcel of the tax-exempt outfit that handed JeffJames GannonGuckert a "diploma" in journalism for two afternoons worth of work and fifty bucks.)

SBSF (Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman, LLP) attorneys Martin Siroka, Brian Fitzgerald, Thurgood Marshall, Harold Levy, and Gary Gallant worked with Tony Rudy, Dan Gans, and Brian Darling of the Alexander Strategy Group in securing this critical legislative accomplishment. The team effectively lobbied Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Representatives Christopher Shays (R-CT), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and Rob Simmons (R-CT) as the bill's bipartisan champions in Congress.

May 14, 2003
The office along the Georgetown waterfront shared by the Harbour Group and the Alexander Strategy Group might be the only one in Washington with a foosball table and two Segway Human Transporters. But these aren't the only signals that this is not your typical D.C. lobbying outpost.
An even more telling sign is what lobbyists from both firms call "the demilitarized zone"- a six-foot-wide intersection of hallways dividing the territories of the all-GOP Alexander Strategy Group and the die-hard Democratic Harbour Group.
<snip>
The two lobby firms say they routinely pitch clients together and, more often, subcontract work from one shop to the other. The relationship works well because the firms are a good fit. Neither has a big-name former member of congress or high-profile former government appointee. Instead, they reel in business by touting fresh contacts, and pitch clients as the ones who will do the work.
Alexander specializes in reaching the Republican House leadership, while Harbour can call on contacts from the Democratic Senate leadership.
http://www.harbourgrp.com/news_pr_051403.html

... and that is how the Schiavo memo got from R to D.

When a news story needs to be influenced late in the evening, will your firm be there? When a Member of Congress needs to be reached on the House floor, will it get done? When a crisis arises that requires immediate, full time attention, who will be returning your call? Your future could hinge on answers to questions just like these and how the firm you select values your business relationship.
http://www.alexanderstrategy.com/commit.asp

... Brian Darling didn't have time to run the spell check
BUT
he did get the Schiavo memo out and about ...

How can someone "investigate" something they probably believed every word of and laughed about in his office?

I don't trust Republicans to investigate anything THEY did...

Now if it's Clinton and it's Janet Reno... we're dumb enough to try to be independent.Even though their judges appointed RW hacks to get Bill.

Rp

instead of being a Democratic dirty trick, it's really a REPUBLICAN-reverse dirty trick/twist/double somersault with pike.

All the conservative pundits who jumped all over this to smear the Dems are left with nowhere to go - except to now blame the WAY it was reported in the first place.

And that nasty Tom Harkin - he knew the memo came from Martinez so why didn't he say so straight away ?? It would have saved SO MUCH EMBARRASSMENT all around !!! What a hoot.......

another example of Democratic dirty tricks. ooops, well, they are now dead wrong about this; think any of them will reconsider that maybe, just maybe, the AWOL forged papers were also a Republican dirty trick?

Naaaah, they already knew those were faked by Republicans.

April 08, 2005
..... Although Mr. Martinez is taking the heat for the memo, what remains unclear is the role of the Senate Democratic leadership in leaking the memo to ABC News and The Washington Post, which wrote that the memo was "an unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators."
Neither report cited its sources, but a later article by The Post and one by the New York Times said the memo was given to reporters by Democratic aides.
The Washington Times conducted a survey of all 100 Senate offices in which only Mr. Harkin admitted to seeing the memo being passed around on the Senate floor, while all 55 Republicans — including Mr. Martinez — denied having any knowledge of it.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, told the survey by The Washington Times that "news outlets have investigated and authenticated the memo was real and came from Republican sources."
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050407-114826-4606r.htm

— including Mr. Martinez — denied having any knowledge of it"

Well they WOULD deny knowledge, wouldn't they ???

but he finally had to admit it. Bush, Rove, and the RNC should offer an apology, if they have any class. Don't hold your breath.

More on Memogate II
By Cliff Kincaid
April 8, 2005
.... The news is that, after weeks of suspense about the authorship and origin of the memo, Brian Darling of the office of Republican Senator Mel Martinez has admitted writing it and has resigned. But the real story is that liberal Democratic Senator Tom Harkin has been confirmed as the source of the document for the media. How did Harkin get the memo? It was a mistake. Martinez was not aware that he had turned the document over to Harkin, nor was he aware of what was in the document. Harkin finally informed Martinez on April 6 that he had in fact received the memo from Martinez himself. That's when Martinez launched his own inquiry and discovered that Darling had written it.

This strange story gets even stranger as you learn more about it. What's clear, now more than ever, is that the Post and other media exploited this document for anti-Republican purposes and exaggerated its importance. It will be interesting to see how Post top brass defend their coverage of this memo at the company's May 12 annual meeting.

It turns out, according to the Post account of Brian Darling's role, that Martinez never read the memo and "distributed" it inadvertently to Harkin, a perceived ally in the Schiavo case. The evidence is now clear that it was Harkin and/or his aides who distributed the memo on a massive scale to other Democrats and the press, including Mike Allen of the Post, in order to make Republicans look bad.

Allen took the bait, falsely reporting that "Republican officials" were the authors, that the memo had been "distributed to Republican senators" and by Republican "party leaders." Allen also reported that the memo had been distributed "only to Republican Senators." None of this was or is true. The Post still has some explaining--and apologizing--to do.
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/ckincaid/2005/ck_04081.shtml

If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats,
we will stop telling the truth about them.
-- Adlai E. Stevenson

Posted on Thu, Apr. 07, 2005
.... Martinez, who is in Rome for Pope John Paul II's funeral, has blamed the episode on his general counsel, Brian Darling, who resigned Wednesday night after admitting he wrote the memo. Darling, originally from Massachusetts, could not be reached for comment.

Darling has worked on conservative issues and some high-profile cases with ties to Florida. As general counsel to former Sen. Robert Smith, R-N.H., Darling was involved in the Elian Gonzalez case. Smith sponsored legislation that would have granted permanent residency to the Cuban boy who was living with relatives in Miami at the time.

According to a report in the National Journal, Darling also worked on the Bush-Cheney recount team in Miami-Dade County in 2000.

Before joining Martinez's staff, Darling lobbied for gun rights and other issues for the Washington-based Alexander Strategy Group.

The group is led by Ed Buckham, a former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Tom Delay. According to reports in The Washington Post, Buckham went on two foreign trips with Delay that are at the center of recent ethics questions surrounding the powerful Republican congressman.

Delay - who in a reference to the judges involved in the Schiavo case, said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior" - has disavowed the memo. His spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.

A member of Martinez's staff who did not wish to be identified said an internal investigation is under way to determine the origins of the memo. Martinez is scheduled to return from Rome on Sunday.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/11338649.htm

...But the real story is that liberal Democratic Senator Tom Harkin has been confirmed as the source of the document for the media...Martinez was not aware that he had turned the document over to Harkin, nor was he aware of what was in the document.
BUT HOW DID MARTINEZ GET THE DOCUMENT? Who GAVE it to him? How did it get from Darling's computer to Martinez's pocket? Does Martinez deny that he told Sen. Harkin that they were "talking points in progress?" And if Martinez didn't know what was in the memo, how did he KNOW they were talking points, AND that they were in progress?

...Senator Tom Harkin has been confirmed as the source of the document for the media...It will be interesting to see how Post top brass defend their coverage of this memo at the company's May 12 annual meeting.
The memo was GIVEN to Harkin--he came into posession of it legally and had every right to do with it as he pleased. It's not like he broke into Martinez' office, or slipped it off his desk while the Senate was in session. You'd think they'd be embarassed that they were all wrong about it being a Democrat dirty trick, but noooooo....

:eyes:
rocknation

Martinez strikes me as a bit of a dim bulb. Why keep the story going with some phony "investigation".

Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case.
He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/07/schiavo.memo.ap/index.html

And if that Harkin man had kept his dang mouth shut,
Mel would be enjoying that Pope-funeral more than he is.

They gotta investigate the ways and means of blaming this whole mess on the Democrats.

Martinez said in a statement Wednesday night that one staff member "was unilaterally responsible for this document." He said the memo "was not approved by me or any other member of my staff, nor were we aware of its existence until very recently..."

I'm STILL waiting for Sen. Martinez to explain how he gave out a memo he didn't know existed while identifying it as a set of talking points in progress. Has Martinez that part of Sen. Harkin's story?

:headbang:
rocknation

used to investigate his own sexual misconduct?

Sen. Mel Martinez turns to familiar words to explain his office's role in an unsigned memo on Terri Schiavo.
WASHINGTON - In the final, critical days of fall's Republican primary for the U.S. Senate from Florida, Mel Martinez's campaign sent out a flier accusing his conservative rival of catering to "the radical homosexual lobby."

Under blistering criticism, Martinez said he had not seen the flier before a staffer mailed it to voters; he promised he would never again be caught unaware of his staff's actions.

Just a few weeks later, he again blamed a staffer for a news release from his campaign that called federal agents "armed thugs" for seizing Elian Gonzalez from his Miami home. Martinez said he wasn't responsible for the "inappropriate" comment. "It was put out by someone in the office," he said.

Now it has happened again.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/08/Worldandnation/New_gaffe__old_Martin.shtml