Former Martinez Aide: Governor Attacks Messenger to Avoid Media Questions

In the SFR report, the former aide, Anissa Ford, alleges that Martinez asked Ford to take a photo of a license plate of a vehicle and send it to Kip Scarborough, then a top investigator in Martinez' Third Judicial District Attorney's Office.

Ford says Martinez asked her to send the photo of the license plate specifically because the vehicle, parked outside a hotel being used by the campaign, was sporting an anti-Martinez bumper sticker. Scarborough replied he'd find out to whom the vehicle belonged—an indication that he would access confidential information stored in government databases.

Instead of addressing the facts reported by the story, Martinez' advisors attacked Ford and SFR.

SFR presented this specific scenario laid out in the story by Ford to Martinez' top political consultant Jay McCleskey five days prior to publication. He didn't address that scenario directly. He only called it "recycled garbage that's already been discredited." 

That was an apparent reference to an April article by Mother Jones, which briefly mentioned the incident described by Ford.

McCleskey repeated that phrase Wednesday when SFR asked him to comment on the story. He has not responded to a follow-up question asking where the account has been "discredited." And he has declined to address any element of Ford's description of the incident. 

Martinez' advisers called the SFR report a "baseless smear" and attempted to tie Ford to the case of Martinez' former campaign manager, Jamie Estrada.

In November, 2012 the FBI raided Ford's home early one morning due to her communications with Estrada. 

Estrada is Martinez' former campaign manager who had a falling out with the governor, after which he used the password and login information he obtained during his time in the campaign to renew its domain name. That allowed him to intercept emails sent to the campaign accounts of Martinez and her staffers. The FBI raided Ford's home because she had been communicating with Estrada about the emails he obtained. 

Ford agreed with federal prosecutors to testify against Estrada in the case. The federal government never charged Ford with any crimes. In fact, she says she has no criminal record at all. 

Nonetheless,  Martinez spokesman Chris Sanchez told the International Business Times Wednesday that it's "reckless and bad journalism to try to breathe life into baseless smear by a disgruntled hack whose home was raided by the FBI for her involvement in federal crimes and from a politician whose campaign benefited from the federal crimes for which his operative is now going to prison."

The "politician" is an apparent reference to Third Judicial District Attorney Mark D'Antonio, a Democrat. Ford volunteered on his DA campaign against Martinez' close friend, Republican Amy Orlando, who lost the 2012 race. Recently, D'Antonio released the results of an internal investigation that alleged Orlando's administration destroyed public records before D'Antonio took the office. Investigators, for instance, cannot locate emails sent to and by the account of then District Attorney Susana Martinez.

Sanchez' statement doesn't clarify how D'Antonio's campaign "benefited" from Estrada's crimes. But emails intercepted by Estrada included those sent by Orlando. 

The general public also "benefited from the federal crimes" by gaining important knowledge about the state's top elected official after media outlets, including SFR, published contents of the emails. Those emails showed that the governor's statements on transparency contradicted her administration's actions on the issue as well as  evidence of collusion between a racino lobbyist and Martinez staffers during the bidding process for a lucrative state contract Martinez eventually awarded to that racino.

That's why as Estrada's case moved to trial, he made a whistleblower defense for intercepting and leaking the emails. The judge, a Bush appointee, rejected that defense, however, and Estrada pleaded guilty to two felonies before the case moved to a jury trial. 

McCleskey attacks the messenger in response to questions about SFR's article to The Santa Fe New Mexican, again calling Ford "disgruntled." The paper reports that the Martinez campaign "vehemently denied" SFR's story, but does not quote a specific denial.

Republican insiders say Martinez' attacks are a pattern.

In September, former state Republican Party chairman Harvey Yates penned a column saying that "McCleskey and Martinez's expertise is the 'attack.'"

"Some activists and politicos also are fond of using a MUTE button," Yates wrote. "They use it to silence inquiry into topics they prefer not to address. They push the button by implying that the offending individual is a 'racist,' or a 'sexist' or the like. They wish to taint the offending party so markedly that other potential questioners will fear to raise the offending issue."

For months, McCleskey has repeatedly declined to answer this question posed by SFR: "Did Susana Martinez’ 2010 gubernatorial campaign, or anyone on its behalf, use any government resource to run a license plate number?"

Ford tells SFR in a statement that McCleskey, "who in fact does have a criminal record," is merely "deflecting attention away from their proven wrong doing." (McCleskey pleaded guilty to a DWI in 1999).

"Don't attack the messenger—the evidence speaks for itself," she writes. "Instead of attacking all the former so called 'disgruntled' employees, why doesn't the administration just answer the media's questions?"