Republicans eating their own in Virginia

Tate Seeks Subpoenas of GOP Leaders in Election Fraud Case
(by Bill Brubaker, Washington Post, February 27, 2008)

A bruising courtroom battle involving local Republican leaders could be looming in Loudoun County (Virginia), where a former GOP state Senate candidate who faces election fraud charges is alleging that his opponents within the party launched the criminal investigation to derail his campaign.

Mark D. Tate wants to subpoena three locally prominent Republicans to testify, according to motions filed by Tate's attorney in Loudoun Circuit Court last week. The Middleburg restaurateur was indicted on nine charges of election fraud in January, three months after a judge had dismissed similar charges against him. Both indictments involve alleged misstatements that Tate made on campaign finance reports he filed during his runs for public office in 2003 and 2007.

Tate's attorney, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., is rolling out some of the same strategies he used to fight last year's indictment -- alleging, for example, that prosecutors leaked damaging information about his client to destroy his candidacy. This time, though, the tactics seem more aggressive.

In the earlier case, MacMahon tried to subpoena Loudoun Commonwealth's Attorney James E. Plowman, who initiated the investigation. This time, court documents show, he is seeking testimony and e-mail records not only from Plowman but also from state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (Winchester), who defeated Tate in the Republican primary in June, and Warrenton Town Attorney Whitson W. Robinson, a Holtzman Vogel supporter who chairs the Republican Party of Fauquier County. MacMahon alleges that Plowman "pushed prosecution as a favor to a political ally" and friend -- Holtzman Vogel -- and that Plowman and Robinson improperly leaked information about the investigation during the Republican primary campaign. Plowman turned over the case to a special prosecutor two months before the primary after questions arose over the timing of the first indictment.