Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) is apologizing to a couple in his district who complained that he left them two threatening voice mails after they wrote a critical letter to the editor about the freshman member.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Lamborn said he has been working diligently on issues of national importance affecting Colorado’s 5th district, including the war in Iraq, the safety and security of our troops, the war on terrorism, immigration and a bloated federal budget.
“Therefore, when my record is not accurately portrayed, I am quick and passionate in attempting to set the record straight,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, recent events have risen to a level that was unintended.”
The letter is addressed to Jonathan and Anna Bartha, who gave the Denver Post access to two voice-mails they received from Lamborn in which he told them there would be “consequences” if they did not withdraw a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. In the letter to the editor, the couple took issue with a $1,000 contribution Lamborn received from the International Game Technology PAC on the basis that it contradicted his stated anti-gambling stance.
Lamborn said that he returned the check and never even deposited it to begin with. Federal Election Commission records show that Lamborn’s campaign committee received a $1,000 check Jan. 30 from the International Gaming Technology (IGT) PAC, and as of the last campaign filing there is no notice that it was returned.
Lamborn told The Hill that the lack of any filing showing a returned check is simply a bureaucratic snafu and that he returned the check sometime in June, when his wife, who handles the mail, first learned of it. He said it had been a difficult, busy time for his wife, who was shuttling from Colorado to Illinois to help her mother, who was suffering from cancer and died a few months ago.
“I apologize for any confusion my voice mail may have caused,” he said in the letter to the Barthas. “Given our pre-existing friendship that we have shared over the years, which included my strong support for Anna’s recent School Board campaign, I simply felt it prudent to privately attempt to clarify my record after it had been publicly misconstrued.”
According to the Denver Post, in the voice mails, Lamborn implores the couple to meet with him to discuss “blatant, wrong” statements in the their letter, at one point appealing to them as “a brother and sister in Christ.”
“I would like to get together with you and show this to you and appeal to you as a brother and sister in Christ,” Lamborn said in one voice mail. “You didn’t give me that opportunity but I am happy to overlook that and deal with you on that level because I think that is the right thing to do and show you where you made a blatant, wrong statement.”
Then, however, the voice mails take a more aggressive tone.
“Now, there are consequences to this kind of thing, but I would like to work with you in a way that is best for everyone here concerned. So please call me at your earliest convenience. It is now 2:40 on Saturday afternoon.”
Jonathan Bartha works for Focus on the Family, and Anna, a school board member of Falcon School district 49, spent two months working as a scheduler to Jeff Crank, one of Lamborn’s 2006 primary opponents, who came within single digit points of beating him after a bitter six-way race. In early August, Crank, a former aide to ex-Rep. Joe Hefley (R-Colo.), announced that he would challenge Lamborn again in 2008.
During the general election, Hefley refused to endorse Lamborn for his old seat because he believed Lamborn had run a “sleazy” campaign, allowing outside groups to run what he regarded as inaccurate attack ads against Crank without denouncing them.
Crank said he did not know that the Barthas were planning to send the letter and only learned of it after it was published.
“I’m not interested in taking pot shots at another Republican,” he said. “This is just a couple who exercised their First Amendment constitutional rights.”
In the Denver Post article, Anna Bartha said Lamborn’s threat of “consequences” made them feel “threatened and intimidated, and quite frankly, scared.”
Responding to a flurry of stories in local papers about the voice mails, Lamborn escalated the dispute last week by issuing an open letter to El Paso County Republican Party Chairman Gary Garcia calling on him to follow his recently announced policy that he would investigate any potentially unsavory charges in the upcoming campaign to avoid a repeat performance of last year’s negative GOP primary. Garcia announced the intention to investigate the day Crank announced his candidacy.
When contacted Tuesday, Garcia said he would not issue a response until he has attempted to talk to Lamborn.
In his letter to the Barthas, Lamborn insists that he did not accept the IGT contribution, that it was returned, and that he remains “steadfast” in his opposition to gambling.
“I welcome any and all input on the job I do as your representative — even when we disagree — but I cannot and will not allow the facts surrounding a contribution from an industry I do not support to be publicly misconstrued.”
Asked what he meant by the threatening “consequences,” Lamborn said he was alluding to his effort to call on Garcia to investigate the matter.
Gary Schneeberger, a vice president for Focus on the Family, said: “Mr. Bartha wrote his letter as a private citizen, not a representative of Focus on the Family. He’s entitled to his personal views — and to his employer not commenting on those views.”
Ken Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom, said Lamborn’s voice mails do not appear to cross any legal lines, although it’s not something “you necessarily want repeated on the front page of the paper.”
Former ethics committee chairman Hefley, however, disagreed. While it would be unlikely for the ethics committee to launch an investigation of the matter on its own, he said, the panel would be more likely to start looking into such a matter if it received a complaint letter from the couple involved.
After reading Lamborn’s apology letter at press time, Anna Bartha said the couple’s feelings haven’t changed.
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