Gay GOP Congressional Candidate Carl DeMaio Has ANOTHER Scandal On His Hands

Yet another scandal is rocking the campaign of Republican US House candidate Carl DeMaio as accusations of secretly authoring a UT San Diego editorial that slammed his opponent, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters have surfaced today.

From NBC 7 in San Diego:

Former DeMaio staffer Todd Bosnich said he and campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch were the authors of an editorial entitled “Scott Peters and the Mount Soledad Shuffle.”

Bosnich accused DeMaio of improper sexual conduct in an interview with CNN on October 10. The DeMaio campaign says Bosnich was fired for plagiarism.

“I worked with Dave on it,” Bosnich said. “So it was, basically, the two of us who wrote it.”

The December 2013 editorial says that “The newly renewed debate over the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial — and how Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, actually feels about it — isn’t just a tiff over trivia. Instead, it’s a revealing reminder that Peters has a history of being both slippery and in substantive.”

The emails provided to NBC 7 indicate that after the editorial ran, McCulloch reached out to a consultant, other campaign staff and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) boasting that “UT San Diego scorched Peters over the Soledad Cross today, saying ‘Peters has a history of being both slippery and insubstantive’ and that ‘rewriting his own history and ducking responsibility for his actions have always come easy to Scott Peters.’"

In response, Alleigh Marree of the NRCC said: “This is great. Will be able to use these lines A LOT.”

In the email thread provided to NBC 7 Investigates, DeMaio wrote back, “Well, we did wrote (sic) it ourselves.”

William Osborne, editorial/opinion director of UT San Diego, told NBC 7 Investigates that UT San Diego editorial writer Chris Reed wrote the editorial. According to Osborne, the DeMaio campaign claimed the email thread had been fabricated.

“If that email is authentic, I cannot explain it and won’t speculate,” Osborne said. “I can only tell you that Carl DeMaio personally denied to me that he wrote it and said it (the email) was a ‘fabrication.’”

Bosnich said the email thread was not altered in any way, adding that the editorial appeared almost “exactly word for word” as he and McCulloch wrote it.

It's worth noting that UT Sand Diego has endorsed Carl DeMaio for Congress.

San Diego City Beat reporter Kelly Davis took her thoughts public when she felt she was being stonewalled by the DeMaio campaign:

OK, so now Carl DeMaio’s campaign is on the record saying Todd Bosnich used DeMaio's campaign email account to send inappropriate messages.
— Kelly Davis (@citybeatkelly) October 24, 2014

If you’re keeping track, DeMaio camp’s gone from no comment to Todd fabricated emails to Todd logged into Carl’s email account.
— Kelly Davis (@citybeatkelly) October 24, 2014

And, since I’ve gotten no response from DeMaio camp on this one, let’s make it public. Via former deputy campaign manager Alison Rentschler:
— Kelly Davis (@citybeatkelly) October 24, 2014

“I… can confirm Todd was not fired for plagiarism. Carl was very involved with the report and referred to it as his ‘baby.’” +
— Kelly Davis (@citybeatkelly) October 24, 2014

(via JMG)