(Update) Tom ‘banned for life by the SEC’ Horne, poster boy for political corruption

Tom “banned for life by the SEC” Horne is having a well-deserved really bad week. Now a formal complaint has been filed with the Maricopa County Attorney’s office. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Ex-Horne staffer files complaint with county attorney:

The attorney for a former Attorney General’s Office staffer who accused Tom Horne of using state resources and personnel to run his reelection campaign has filed a complaint with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

MCAO spokesman Jerry Cobb confirmed that attorney Tom Ryan filed a complaint with the agency on Tuesday. Ryan represents Sarah Beattie, who worked in the attorney general’s constituent services division and volunteered as a fundraising consultant for Horne’s campaign before resigning in April.

Beattie on Monday filed complaints with the Secretary of State’s Office and Citizens Clean Elections Commission alleging that most members of Horne’s executive office staff conduct campaign activities during the work day, and that she spent the majority of her days at the Attorney General’s Office on campaign work.

While Beattie and Ryan alleged violations of two election-related statutes, the complaint also accused Horne and his staff of violating the “mini-Hatch Act,” Arizona’s version of a federal law that bars the use of public resources for political campaigns.

Cobb would not comment on the content of the complaint, nor would he say whether MCAO is investigating.

“We don’t confirm, deny or comment on possible investigations by our agency or other agencies,” Cobb said in an email to the Arizona Capitol Times.

Ryan declined to comment on the complaint, other than to confirm it had been filed with MCAO.

If MCAO takes up an investigation, it won’t be its first into alleged election-related violations by Horne. In 2012, the agency assisted the FBI with an investigation into allegations that Horne illegally coordinated with an independent expenditure committee run by ally Kathleen Winn during his 2010 campaign.

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The Attorney General’s Office later referred the case to the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office, which found that Horne and Winn had violated the law. An administrative law judge in April recommended that the complaint against Horne be dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk has until May 19 to decide whether to accept or reject the administrative law judge’s recommendation.

Cobb wouldn’t say whether Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery would transfer the complaint to another agency.

Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times has more. Tom Horne Admits Document Destruction and Is Fine With AG Employees Working on State Time:

Denials can be telling. Certainly, this is the case with Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s denial of wrongdoing, in the wake of attorney Tom Ryan’s dropping his bunker buster of a complaint on Horne’s office.

The document, which Ryan filed dramatically on Monday with the Arizona Secretary of State, alleges that the AG’s executive office has been doubling as Horne’s campaign headquarters.

It’s based on a sworn affidavit from whistle-blowin’ ex-AG staffer Sarah Beattie and a trove of campaign-related documents, e-mails, opposition research and other goodies allegedly created and/or sent to others on the taxpayer’s dime.

Yesterday, Horne issued a response to the accusations. The reply is lawyerly, and inadvertently damning.

It’s as if he’s saying, in a very Bill Clinton sort of way, “Look, we didn’t break the law, but if we did, it’s not really against the law.”

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By itself, that cache of documents reveals the political brothel Horne’s made of his high public office.

Regarding the claim in Beattie’s affidavit that Horne instructed her to delete a campaign-related e-mail he inadvertently sent to her state e-mail account, Horne essentially admits to a cover-up.

“You cannot control what emails you receive on your state computer,” writes Horne. “It is written in the policy & procedures that if any employee receives an inappropriate political email, they are to delete it and instruct the sender not to send any more emails. So if Ms. Beattie was told to delete an email, it is because that is what our office instructs employees to do. Records requests are answered from a central computer memory, so deletions at individual computers cannot hide anything and are not intended to.”

Is Horne admitting that he ordered Beattie to delete the e-mail? I asked his spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham just that question.

She replied: “As per our written policy, yes.”

There is much more to Stephen Lemon’s lengthy report, too much to reproduce here. Read his full report. Tom Horne Admits Document Destruction and Is Fine With AG Employees Working on State Time.