More On The Duvall Saga: The OC/Sacto GOP Angle
After my meeting with Mike Duvall the other day, I decided to see If I could learn anything more about the events of last summer that led to Mike’s ultimate resignation as the 72nd District State Assemblymen.
One of our good Friends happens to know a well-placed legislative aide who works in Sacramento and who, I was told, could help fill in some of the gaps. So I called this person.
According to this individual, it is not at all unusual for legislative staffers to request audio records of committee meetings; in fact it is a fairly standard practice. Thus, the fact that Jeff Miller’s aide requested a record of the meeting doesn’t signify any sort of prior conspiracy by Miller – or anyone else for that matter. My source logically pointed out that Miller, to a lesser extent, ended up getting painted by the same brush as Duvall.
Instead what this person says happened is that the embarrassing audio record did end up in the wrong hands – at least as far as Duvall is concerned. My source indicates that Duvall’s personal enemy Jon Fleischman did indeed come to possess a copy of the tape; and sometime between July 2009 and late August 2009 orchestrated the leak of the information to KCAL’s Dave Lopez and the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley.
Although Fleischman’s motives were said to be personal, others such as OC Republican power broker Mike Schroeder were also aware of the impending ambush, according to my source, although Schroeder’s motives for participating in Fleishman’s scheme in some way or other were not made abundantly clear.
As with my interview with Duvall, I can not immediately confirm the veracity of my source’s information, and the journalists in question will surely not reveal their source(s). Still, our insider is indeed well-placed to know what happened and I confer a certain level of credence to the story.
What is still unknown is what other high-level Republicans knew of the tape, it’s impending release, and the obvious political fallout from that release. If indeed Fleischman was the mastermind of the Duvall ambush, it is very hard to believe he would dare to do so without the consent of at least some of the OC Republican ruling party bosses – folks such as Schroeder, Dick Ackerman, and even Party Chairman, Scott Baugh. Why these party worthies would prefer, or even allow a public scandal instead of a quiet resignation by Duvall is something we may contemplate at our leisure.
However, as I noted yesterday, discussion of the Linda Ackerman candidacy on the integrity platform seemed to appear on cue, if way out of left field, before the ink had even dried on Duvall’s letter of resignation.
One thing is for sure. Schroeder is a Norby supporter big time so no way was he involved for the purpose of boosting Ackerwoman.
#1 True. Each of the chief ‘pugs would have his own agenda and each might have his own reason for torpedoing Duvall with prejudice. Remember how chummy Fleischman was with Flackerman – going to his house in the top-secret gated community for a holiday video?
And both Fleischman and Schroeder were deep into the Carona regime.
Come to think of it Schoeder is in the insurance game too. maybe there was some kind of a turf war and Duvall got rubbed out!
In any case I like the way this story is going. What and why Duvall said what he said is a lot less interesting to me than the “August Ambush” that was orchestrated behind the scenes.
I heard about this website yesterday on KFI 640. I love it!
Fleischman is as crooked as the come–that’s what he has been taught. He and his Red County lemmings suck the Lewis / Baugh tit way to much. Nobody can think on their own.
after the scandel jon and ken had a former staffer of duvall, who said this was common practice for him, and he had always been a habitual womenizer
staff- you make a big mistake by buying too far into jon and ken. remember- they get paid for ratings, and the more scandalous it sounds, the better. no duvall staffer- as i know them all- ever volunteered information on air regarding this… so you were lied to.
there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. obviously, 2 months to let it fester means something else was going on. yes, its common practice for legislators to have “extracurricular activities” but why duvall? why then? it didn’t seem like an opportune time, and plus, miller DID get painted with the same brush, but not nearly as heavily. He may have escaped, especially since he was off contemplating a senate run.
Fleischman was the last guy in the process before the press…. you can see who requested copies of the video through the capitol. It’s public record. Apparently nobody thought to request those records and connect the dots. It was either a staffer of duvalls that threw him under the bus, or Miller’s staffer. But no staff member has motivations of their own- they would have had to have a very compelling bribe.
Shades of truth hither and dither…
With respect to Fleischman’s involvement, you do not realize how close you are to the truth. He is up to his eyeballs in this situation.