Apr 28, 2011
Horne's partial recusal from Fiestagate falls short
Attorney General refuses to remove self from investigation of top Republican powerbrokers
Andrei Cherny, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, issued the following response to Horne's announcement today:
"I thank Attorney General Horne for transferring part of the Fiestagate investigation and recognizing the conflict of interest, but his actions fall far short of what is required in the public interest. For Attorney General Horne to claim that prominent lobbyists Chuck Coughlin and Gary Husk are just names on a long list of contributors to his campaign strains believability. They are two of the most powerful men in state government and in Republican party politics.
"The allegations of elected officials allegedly accepting tickets or failing to report gifts are disturbing, and if wrongdoing is found, those individuals should be held accountable -- be they Democrats or Republicans. But these issues are ultimately secondary to the most important allegation of corruption: that Republican powerbrokers had used the Fiesta Bowl as a front for the distribution of illegal campaign contributions.
"Mr. Coughlin and Mr. Husk say they are innocent in this matter. But given the totality of the evidence that has already been revealed, we simply cannot take them at their word. Only a credible investigation can determine what happened in Fiestagate. As a former prosecutor in the Attorney General's Fraud and Public Corruption Unit, I know of the professionalism of the career attorneys there. But I also know that the people of Arizona will have little confidence that the charging and other decisions in this investigation have been done without political influence as long as the investigation is in the hands of Attorney General Horne or other ambitious Republican politicians.
"I repeat my call for Attorney General Horne to transfer this entire investigation into the hands of a respected, independent third party.”
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