Key Question in Baugh Case: How Close Did Pringle Get?

The young Republican was wrapping up his testimony, having just laid out a scheme to manipulate a crucial election, when he insisted the chain of command went no higher than a few fresh-faced GOP aides.

Members of the Orange County Grand Jury weren’t buying it.

“I am having trouble believing,” a juror told witness Jeff Gibson last month, “that . . . you would jeopardize your career doing something illegal unless it came from someone higher up.”

The juror didn’t say whom he suspected in the election fraud case surrounding Assemblyman Scott Baugh, but a trail of evidence--including sworn testimony, telephone records and campaign finance reports--runs directly to the door of Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove).

Pringle insists the trail stops there, even though some GOP operatives who worked closely with him have admitted roles in the scheme. He maintains he knew nothing of their efforts to draft a decoy Democrat to siphon votes from Baugh’s key Democratic opponent in the Nov. 28 special election. Baugh’s victory gave the GOP control of the Legislature’s lower house and, ultimately, won Pringle the speakership.

“I was not recruiting Democrat or Republican candidates,” Pringle told reporters recently.

Pringle has not been charged, and no evidence has surfaced to suggest he broke any laws or to directly tie him to the scheme. But Pringle has declined to say anything more, leaving political observers to speculate on his brief remarks.

“No one pulls off a scheme like this without the blessing of the boss,” said Shirley Grindle, a longtime prominent Orange County campaign reform advocate. “There is no way to convince most of us that Pringle wasn’t aware or giving the marching orders.”

Others familiar with the Baugh case find it easy to believe that Pringle played no role in illegal activity, which involved Republican aides circulating nominating petitions for the stealth Democratic candidate, Laurie Campbell, which they knew they would not sign. Campbell signed the documents under penalty of perjury, swearing she had circulated them.

They say it’s possible he knew only of the broad outlines of a plan to draft a Democrat--which GOP officials note may be underhanded but was nevertheless legal--and that he may have been in the dark about how the plan was executed.

“The average assemblyman gives an order and leaves the details to others,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of government at UC Berkeley who once supervised Pringle’s top aide, Jeff Flint, as a research assistant.

But Pringle’s name turns up on page after page of material made public in the last several weeks. The body of evidence--some of which Pringle disputes--includes:

* Grand jury testimony that shows that Flint, then Pringle’s chief of staff, was intimately involved in drafting Campbell. Flint, who became deputy chief of staff when Pringle assumed the speakership, still answers directly to Pringle.

* Interviews revealing that on Sept. 21, Pringle and other top Republican legislative leaders held a private meeting next door to the office where GOP aides were completing a last-minute effort to draft Campbell.

* Phone records made public by prosecutors that show frequent telephone conversations involving Flint’s cell phone, Pringle’s district and campaign offices, and Pringle political consultant Dave Gilliard’s office and home. The telephone conversations occurred on the day Campbell filed to run for the 67th Assembly District seat.

* Grand jury testimony by Campbell saying that Baugh told her “Pringle’s people” drove the scheme to get her onto the ballot.

* Grand jury testimony by Richard Martin, a Baugh campaign worker, asserting that Pringle spoke in August of the need to get more Democrats onto the ballot.

* Grand jury testimony that Flint and Gilliard tried to raise money to pay Campbell’s legal bills after her stealth candidacy was uncovered.

“It’s hard to believe Pringle didn’t know what was going on,” said Ruth Holton, executive director of California Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. “The person responsible is the elected official. He can’t absolve himself by simply saying he didn’t know.”

The scandal has taken its toll on the GOP. Three Republican operatives, including former Pringle staffer Mark Denny, pleaded guilty in March to election fraud.

Baugh, the current assemblyman from Huntington Beach, was indicted March 21 on four felony counts of perjury or persuading others to commit perjury on campaign finance statements and 18 misdemeanor charges of falsely reporting or failing to report campaign loans, contributions and expenditures, as well as the improper use of cash in the campaign.

Also indicted were Rhonda J. Carmony, campaign manager to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), who is accused of orchestrating the plan. Both have denied wrongdoing. Baugh’s chief of staff, Maureen Werft, was also indicted on a separate charge.

Pringle has refused repeated requests from The Times to be interviewed about the grand jury testimony. Until Friday, he has confined his remarks to The Times to a brief interview given on the floor of the Assembly.

Provided more than 20 questions, Pringle’s spokesman Friday released a statement containing excerpts of Pringle’s previous remarks on the issues.

Pringle insists the matter is behind him.

“I think the focus will remain the Republican policy agenda,” Pringle said two weeks ago.

*

The starting point for the Baugh case is the frantic days leading up to the Sept. 21 deadline to qualify for the 67th Assembly District race. The election was critical for the Republicans, who were simultaneously trying to oust then-Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) and replace her with a legislator more loyal to the GOP leadership.

As the Sept. 21 deadline neared, GOP power brokers worried that they might lose. The problem: Too many Republicans were likely to face just one Democrat, former Huntington Beach Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson.

According to grand jury testimony, Pringle’s office may have been pressured by financial backers to get more Democrats into the race to help split their votes.

Danielle Madison, executive director of the California Independent Business PAC, testified that she spoke with Pringle and Flint shortly before the deadline about the need to recruit a Democrat. Madison testified that Pringle “did not respond” during the conversation, but Flint acknowledged the possibility that Republican candidates might split up their votes and allow a Democrat to win.

The PAC is a tiny but powerful group of wealthy business leaders who contribute heavily to conservative candidates.

Pringle told district attorney’s investigators in interviews in February and March that he “may have” had a discussion with Madison about Democrats on the ballot. And he said he heard discussion among donors and lawmakers about the candidates running to replace Allen. But he told them he was never involved in any recruitment, in part because he did not believe such a ploy was necessary.

According to Campbell, Baugh told her a more detailed story about the financial pressures.

“I don’t know who it was, but whoever holds the money, some big campaign donators, made some calls. . . . And those people called Pringle’s office,” Campbell told the grand jurors under oath. “[Pringle’s office] said, ‘You better get it done.’ ”

Baugh, who has declined comment to The Times, told a Sacramento radio reporter March 25 that he has “no personal knowledge of Mr. Pringle’s alleged involvement in this action at all.”

In August, a month before the filing deadline, Pringle told GOP aide Richard Martin of the need to draft a Democrat, according to Martin’s grand jury testimony.

Martin, an aide to Baugh who was working on the Allen recall, testified under oath that Pringle told him more Democrats were needed in the race. Martin was one of the three GOP political operatives who later pleaded guilty to election fraud and testified as part a plea bargain.

“Pringle said, ‘We need the Democrats on the ballot,’ ” Martin testified.

In the statement released to The Times Friday by Pringle spokesman Gary Foster, the speaker is quoted as saying, “I have only met Richard Martin and have never had a discussion about the need to recruit Laurie Campbell or any other Democrat.”

By the late afternoon of Sept. 21, with the qualifying deadline fast approaching, the Republicans still did not have a decoy Democrat on the ballot.

Just after lunch, Pringle held a closed-door meeting of several top Republican legislators in his Garden Grove Assembly office. Among them were state Senators Ross Johnson of Newport Beach, John R. Lewis of Orange and Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove. Also present for at least part of the session were Gilliard, Pringle’s political consultant, and Flint, who, according to grand jury testimony, shuttled in and out of the room.

Just next door, in Pringle’s adjoining campaign office, the GOP aides were frantically carrying out the plan to put Campbell on the ballot, according to several aides’ own sworn statements.

In the statement released Friday by Foster, Pringle said: “I met with a group of legislators and we talked about the recall campaign as a separate entity from the Baugh, or any specific candidate’s, campaign. We never talked about recruiting Laurie Campbell or any other candidate, Republican or Democrat.”

Other members of the county’s delegation acknowledged they participated in the meeting but denied they talked about a stealth Democrat.

“I have no recollection of Laurie Campbell’s name ever being brought up in that meeting,” Lewis said recently. “There’s no connection between anything that might have taken place in the campaign office and the meeting in Curt’s personal office.”

According to testimony by Gibson, campaign manager for the Allen recall, Flint shuttled repeatedly between Pringle’s district office, where the meeting was held, and Pringle’s campaign office.

Denny and Gibson left Pringle’s campaign office with a printout of Democratic voters from Pringle’s campaign computer so they could more quickly gather signatures in Garden Grove to complete Campbell’s nominating petitions, according to grand jury testimony. They drove to the registrar of voters’ office, where they met Campbell, Martin and Carmony.

Phone records subpoenaed by the district attorney’s office show that Flint’s cellular phone was in frequent contact with Carmony’s cellular phone and Rohrabacher’s campaign office throughout the afternoon.

Records also show there were several calls that same afternoon between the PAC’s office, and Pringle’s office, and Flint’s cellular phone. The PAC office also called Campbell’s home that day.

To Democratic Assembly Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar, the proximity of the two gatherings raises numerous questions.

“This was the most important election in Orange County’s history. It made the difference between Pringle being an assemblyman and Pringle being the speaker,” Katz said.

“What were they talking about,” Katz mused, “Magic Johnson’s return to the Lakers?”

However, Tony Quinn, a veteran GOP strategist in Sacramento, said it is unlikely that a legislator would hint to his staff to get something done so he would have deniability.

“That is not the way that they would operate,” he said. “Legislators do not hint to their staffs, but staffs certainly do things on the margin that they don’t tell the legislators.”

*

If Pringle’s exact involvement is unclear, the roles his aides played are easier to discern. Several GOP volunteers and workers who were close to Pringle during the Allen recall and the Baugh election were actively involved in drafting Campbell, testimony shows.

Denny, a member of Pringle’s district staff, helped gather signatures for Campbell and pleaded guilty to election fraud. Denny testified that he helped carry out the scheme without telling either Flint or Pringle.

Flint has not been charged, and he has declined to comment. Through his lawyer, Charles Spagnola, he acknowledged that he knew of the plan to draft Campbell. But Spagnola said that Flint did not break the law because he did not know his two deputies, Denny and Gibson, had gathered Campbell’s signatures.

It is not a crime for members of one political party to recruit someone from another party to run in an election. It is a felony, however, to fraudulently fill out any part of a nomination paper or to knowingly file a falsified nominating petition.

Gibson and Denny pleaded guilty to circulating nomination papers that, according to their grand jury testimony, they knew they would not sign.

In sworn statements, several witnesses assert that Flint, who took a temporary leave from Pringle’s staff payroll to run the Allen recall campaign, played a major role in the scheme.

Jeff Butler, a Baugh campaign worker, testified that on Sept. 21, he was told by Carmony to carry a sheaf of Campbell’s unfinished nominating petitions to Pringle’s offices. Before he left, Flint called, Butler told the grand jury.

Butler testified that Flint was concerned about who would sign Campbell’s nominating papers. Flint insisted that Campbell sign her own nominating papers--even though she did not collect the signatures, Butler said.

“It has to be a Democrat. We’ll just get Laurie Campbell to sign them,’ ” Butler said Flint told him.

Other testimony also points to Flint.

PAC director Madison, for instance, told the grand jurors she spoke repeatedly with Flint and Gilliard about the need to recruit a Democrat.

Madison’s assistant, Catherine Raynor, testified that she had numerous conversations with both Flint and Gilliard in the days prior to the Sept. 21 deadline about splitting the Democratic vote.

“They were taking care of it,” Raynor testified.

Raynor told the grand jurors that Flint and Gilliard told her “a number of times” on Sept. 21 that they had found a Democratic candidate, and that it was from Flint that she first heard the name Laurie Campbell.

Raynor said her discussions with Flint and Gilliard grew increasingly frantic as the 5 p.m. deadline neared.

“[Flint] told me ‘We believe we have it under control,’ ” Raynor testified.

Would GOP operatives gather signatures, draft candidates and falsify nominating petitions without Pringle’s knowledge?

Several people said it seemed unlikely that Flint would participate or allow such an operation to go forward without authorization. Others asked if GOP aides would execute such a plan without some kind of direction from the boss.

Tom Umberg, a Garden Grove Democrat who defeated Pringle in a 1990 Assembly race--Pringle regained the office in 1994 when Umberg unsuccessfully ran for state attorney general--described the recall of Allen and the election of her replacement as the “most important election of Curt Pringle’s career, save his own.”

“Curt is very detail oriented,” he said. “I would be surprised if he left the details of this crucial operation to his staff without adequate supervision.”

Orange County grand jurors also wondered aloud if GOP higher-ups were involved. After listening to testimony from Gibson, 24, and the third Republican political operative to plead guilty in the scheme, a grand juror wanted to know more.

“Please consider this strongly,” the juror asked. “Are you assuming the role of a loyal, sacrificial lamb in the hopes of being welcomed back into the fold once your [three-year] probation is over?” Gibson replied: “No, that’s not a consideration.”

Some observers say the denials carry a familiar ring.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior associate at the Claremont Graduate School, said deniability is often factored into political operations. She recalled the Watergate scandal, where the term “maximum feasible deniability” first became popular.

“If a politician is involved on the periphery of something that smells a little bit . . . then he or she, or those around them, if they are smart enough, what they try to set up is maximum feasible deniability,” Jeffe said. “It is the firewall concept, insulation.”

*

As Campbell’s fraudulent candidacy unraveled, Pringle aides Flint and Gilliard denied any involvement with her. But grand jury testimony shows they tried to help her.

As a Sacramento Superior Court judge prepared to throw Campbell off the ballot in response to a lawsuit filed by Democrats, Flint and Gilliard tried to raise money for her legal bills, Madison testified.

Madison, director of the California Independent Business PAC, testified that the two men called and asked if the PAC would pay for Laurie Campbell’s legal fees.

“I said, without even a hesitation, ‘Absolutely not. We don’t know this woman. We have nothing to do with it . . .’ They were very unhappy,” Madison testified.

Pringle said that it wasn’t until nearly a month after Baugh’s Nov. 28 victory that he learned of Denny’s role in the scheme. He docked him two weeks’ pay.

Denny resigned in March, the day before he pleaded guilty.

Flint continues to work for Pringle.

“I have yet to see anything wrong with what Flint did,” Pringle said in the brief interview on the Assembly floor last week. “Basically what you see in those [transcripts] are very consistent with what he told me--that he wasn’t involved at all in the collection of signatures, which is the action the district attorney is investigating.”

Prosecutors say they are continuing their investigation.

“The only people who know with certainty how this all played out,” Jeffe said, “are Pringle and the people around him.”

Times staff writer Eric Bailey contributed to this report.