Fiedler Side Plays Tapes in Marathon Media Show

In an extraordinary marathon press conference and tape-playing session in Studio City on Wednesday, lawyers for Rep. Bobbi Fiedler attempted to prove that the Northridge Republican and her top aide, Paul Clarke, were unfairly indicted last month by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.

Fiedler and Clarke were charged with offering a $100,000 campaign contribution to lure state Sen. Ed Davis of Valencia out of the Republican U.S. Senate primary.

With more than 50 media representatives crowded into a poolside motel conference room Wednesday , Fiedler’s advisers played a series of about 20 tapes made secretly by Davis’ campaign manager, Martha Zilm, who was cooperating with prosecutors.

The tapes were given to Fiedler by the prosecution earlier this week.

Fiedler and Clarke were not present during the playing of the tapes on Wednesday, but Fiedler’s advisers provided running commentary and answered questions about what they contend are the key flaws in the prosecution case.

The alleged flaws included:

- The entire investigation was poorly grounded because it stemmed from an “amorphous conversation between two supporters” on the periphery of the Davis and Fiedler campaigns concerning Davis’ possible withdrawal from the race.

The whole episode should have ended with Davis calling Fiedler for an explanation of the contributors’ conversation, defense counsel Harland Braun said, rather than Davis’ contacting authorities “to set Fiedler up.”

- The Los Angeles district attorney’s office, which investigated the charges, did not understand how political campaigns work.

Braun said that the prosecutors’ lack of knowledge about campaign fund raising led them to erroneously conclude that they had “the smoking gun” in the case of Clarke.

- Fiedler never offered any money in exchange for Davis’ leaving the race. Her advisers played a tape in which the congresswoman is heard saying to Zilm that she tried to raise money for Davis “because Ed and I have been long-standing friends” and not as “a quid pro quo. And I hope you don’t consider it a quid pro quo either.”

Braun conceded that portions of the lengthy tapes could look bad for Fiedler and Clarke if a jury did not understand politics.

If the case goes to trial, Braun said, “the jury will have to learn about politics. The trial would be a civics lesson.”

The best example of a needed explanation, he said, was hearing Zilm on a tape warning Clarke that what they were discussing was illegal. Clarke appears to brush that aside with the comment that it was OK “unless you put something in writing and had a contract.”

Braun said that if the prosecutors and grand jury had known more about fund raising, they would have realized that Clarke was alluding to the problem of formal commitments when one candidate goes to his contributors and asks them to give money to a rival who is getting out the race.

If that kind of arrangement is formalized, Braun said, “it makes the candidate who is helping appear to be a conduit” and could be viewed by the Federal Election Commission as illegal.

Instead, he said, the way campaign workers routinely provide such help is informally, by calling their donors and suggesting that they also consider helping the rival candidate who is quitting.

“It’s the key to a healthy two-party political system,” Braun said. “Candidates help each other out and keep the parties from factionalizing.”

In addition, a Fiedler aide said, a tape of a Jan. 3 meeting between Clarke and Zilm reveals that Clarke said that “everything is being done on a voluntary basis,” and that he “can’t guarantee anything.”

Defense lawyers also contended that Fiedler thought Davis had already decided to leave the Senate race when she began talking with Zilm about the possibility of helping him and of his endorsing her.

The lawyers said that long taped conversations between Zilm and Fiedler pollster Arnold Steinberg show that Zilm convinced Steinberg that Davis was preparing to leave the race.

Steinberg told reporters:

“There was no basis for any government agency doing anything after the initial information (came from the Davis camp to authorities).”

Fiedler aides played the tapes in chronological order, beginning with a Nov. 25 call to Zilm from Davis supporter George Moss. More than two weeks earlier Moss had told Zilm that a Fiedler supporter had inquired about the possibility of Davis leaving the race.

But since the investigation had not yet begun, there is no tape of that conversation and the two campaigns continue to dispute whether any specific mention of money was made when the two supporters talked.

After Moss’ first call to Zilm, the Davis campaign heard nothing further from the Fiedler camp. However, Davis and Zilm informed authorities that they thought a law had been broken by the Fiedler supporter’s suggestion. In Zilm’s Nov. 25 conversation with Moss, the first to be taped, Zilm says she has not heard anything more from the Fiedler campaign and asks Moss to get back in touch with his source in the Fiedler camp.

“I think I’d like to know what they had in mind,” she says on the tape. Fiedler’s camp said that this shows that if anything, Davis and prosecutors sought to solicit an illegal act by the Fiedler camp.

“There are some people who assume the worst and seem to want to get people convicted of a criminal act,” Steinberg said to reporters. “They’re called bad cops.”

Soon after Zilm’s call back to Moss, she received a call from Steinberg and they proceeded twice to San Fernando Valley restaurants in December. On the tapes, Steinberg talks almost non-stop about how a campaign shuts itself down and also tells Zilm that it is very hard for one candidate to help another financially in a federal race because contribution limits for individuals are set at $1,000.

In these conversations Steinberg does not hold out much hope of help for Davis.

Steinberg said Wednesday, “That’s why I was not surprised when I did not hear from Martha again after our Dec. 18 lunch. The next thing I know she has called Paul (Clarke) the week before Bobbi announced for the Senate race on Jan. 6.”

The tapes played Wednesday included phone calls from Zilm to Clarke and Fiedler that eventually led to a Jan. 12 meeting of the three at Fiedler’s Northridge home.

Minutes after Zilm left, investigators knocked on Fiedler’s door. The investigators are heard on the tapes telling Fiedler and Clarke that they are under investigation for campaign violations and that they would be wise to cooperate by giving immediate statements.

But Clarke and Fiedler refused, saying they would prefer to wait until they had lawyers with them.

“Here you are . . . in my living room,” she said, “(and) I’m not guilty of any wrongdoing. . . . Am I being set up?”