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So I guess the story wasn’t a fantasy concocted in the basements of the New York Times and McCain headquarters after all. I’m shocked:
An ever-present aide to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney took a leave of absence Friday after he became the subject of investigations in two states for allegedly impersonating a law enforcement officer.
His attorney denied the charges.
Jay Garrity, who serves as director of operations and is constantly at the side of the former Massachusetts governor, is accused of leaving a lengthy message with the answering service of a plumbing company on Mother’s Day, identifying himself as “Trooper Garrity” of the Massachusetts State Police and complaining about erratic driving by a company driver.
The district attorney in Boston is investigating the call, which was tape recorded by an after-hours operator. Impersonating an officer is a misdemeanor charge carrying a fine of up to $400 and one year imprisonment.
“Listening to the message, it sounded like he was calling control and speaking back and forth to people,” said Dot Barme, whose Burlington company, Wayne’s Drains, received the call. “I had my husband listen to it and he said, ‘He’s not talking to anybody; he’s talking back and forth to himself,” Barme told The Associated Press.
Stephen Jones, an attorney representing Garrity, said his client did not make the May 13 call, first reported by The Boston Globe, and has no connection with the cell phone to which it was traced.
“He has insisted since he’s heard about this to have a voice analysis done to exonerate him or prove he did not do this,” Jones said.
Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, confirmed the investigation.
“We’re looking into a phone call placed to an area business by an individual who represented himself as a state trooper,” Wark said. “We do not believe the person who made that call is a state trooper and we are working to determine his identity.”
Meanwhile, Garrity also has been accused of telling a New York Times reporter who had been following Romney’s motorcade in New Hampshire last month that he had run the license plate of the reporter’s rental car, and that he should break away from the caravan.
The New Hampshire attorney general’s office is investigating that incident after the reporter, Mark Leibovich, recounted the May 29 events in a story about Romney last weekend. New Hampshire law prohibits citizens from accessing the state’s license plate database.
“Jay has taken a leave of absence from the campaign to address these complaints,” said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.
Jones, the Garrity attorney, disputed the sequence of events. Leibovich has stood by his version of the story.
In 2004, Garrity was cited and fined by Massachusetts officials after a Ford Crown Victoria registered to him was found to have lights, a siren, radios and other law enforcement equipment including a baton after it was parked illegally in Boston’s North End. At the time, Garrity was paid $75,000 annually as Romney’s gubernatorial chief of operations.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
LJ,
From your first sentence, it sounds like the investigation has been completed, and the NYT version of the story accepted as fact. Wanna tighten that up a little?
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
As sands in the hourglass so are the days of our lives…
Still waiting for McCain to force his county chair in Iowa to apologize or be fired!
If not then it is clear where McCain stands.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
nowandlater,
Comparing mormons to the Taliban is par for the course for Team McCain. And given the whisper campaign that McCain’s been pushing on Romney’s religion over the last year, I doubt that appologies from anyone in that camp mean anything at all.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Will there may be more to this story?
What did Mitt know and when did he realize his Director of Operations was a wannabe faux-cop?
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
This Garrity guy has got some serious issues.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Yawn. This is a non-story that will have no effect on the campaign. McCain is making a fool out of himself. At worst, Romney has to get a new security company – actually, it might not be a bad idea to ask for Secret Service Protection.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Flap, I suppose you can only hope for as much. Sure is more significant than your SC chair being a crack-head. *rolls eyes*
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Murphy:
You need to make sure you get the facts straight. He’s a cokehead, not a crackhead.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Rudy’s SC chair was not just a crack-head, he was a crack dealer!!
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Tommy,
If you say so. I’ll freely admit to being somewhat naive in the sordid underworld of narcotics that Team Rudy dabbles in.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Ok, McCain apologized! Very good.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
LJ,
I am sorry, but your first sentence is dishonest.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Right you are Jason,
This guy resigning does not prove anything. It is clear that this whole thing was a hit job from the start. Since Romney is squeaky clean, the opposition research comes up with nothing on him. What do they do? The dig dirt up on any others associated with his campaign and then try to smear Romney by attacking them.
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Jason,
If there is nothing to the story then why didn’t Team Romney just laugh it off as a baseless accusation instead of accepting Garrity’s leave of absence?
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
LJ,
You’re being speculative and dishonest. I would hope you’d hold yourself to a slightly higher standard…you know, something involving due process or evidence before a declaration of guilt.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm
LJ,
Can you offer some sort of proof to back up your first sentence?
So now everytime a candidate responds to a point of criticism it must be true?
My question for you is, why are there so many attacks at Romney coming out of the McCain camp? It’s pretty sad and a sign of the times.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Lol, so if Romney did nothing you would have painted him as weak, but now that he did what you wanted it proves his staffer broke the law.
Nice one.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Regarding Jay Garrity, this is no surprise for those of us in Connecticut who have known him since
the late 1990s. He used to hang around the Rowland campaign and claim to be a staffer.
He wasn’t. The security people got a kick out of him and would let
Jay stand with them–Jay would have the ear-piece and sleeve mic…the whole
thing. But, it wasn’t operationl. No matter. Jay would talk into it
like is was.
June 25th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
June 25th, ‘07
Well, you knew sooner or later Mitt Romney and/or his staff would be getting into trouble. It probably was Mitt Romney’s Mormon church political operative friend who also sometimes misrepresents himself to take liberties with unsuspecting people on whom he snoops who probably told Jay Garrity it was okay for him to impersonate a cop, (especially since some evidence I have proves David McConkie also himself has previously misrepresented himself as a police officer to illegally obtain information on others), that probably spurred him to engage in such bad conduct.
Mitt Romney’s close association with the Mormon church and this church’s political operative, David McConkie, should provoke suspicions about Jay Garrity doing wrong on Mitt Romney’s political campaign. I don’t know if anyone knows this or not but Mitt Romney made yet another campaign swing through Utah this past weekend and most likely talked with Mormon church leaders like this church’s president Gordon Hinckely especially since he celebrated his 97th birthday this past weekend and probably also had at least one discussion with Mormon church political oeprative David McConkie, all of which makes sense given that Mitt Romney IS Mormon and likes to think he’s in good standing in his [Mormon] church, and held three fundraising events which were one in the northern Utah city of Logan and the other was just outside Salt Lake City and then had a third private gathering in his home in Deer Valley. So, as can be seen, Mormon Mitt Romney is on the political move.
He can’t afford to be lugging around excess baggage such as that which will come from Jay Garrity being in trouble with the law even if he got in trouble because of bad “advice” maybe given him by someone like Mormon church political operative David McConkie. Mitt Romney still cannot afford to keep such people employed.
Besides, this is David McConkie’s strategy when things get complicated. In other words he “advises” people to “get rid” of their “problem.” Hence, Mitt Romney got rid of his $75,000 a year staffer Jay Garrity because he’s in trouble with the law. Makes sense, especially since I’ve witnessed many times David McConkie executing his “elimination” policy whenever he deems a person a “problem.”
Kathy Caudle
Salt Lake City, UT
June 26th, 2007 at 1:20 am
Kathy
Great comment, you sound very ignorant and arrogant to the fact that this same accusation has been brought up before. If you would take the time to research you would understand that Jay Garrity and Mitt Romney have consistently been attacked at how professional and squeeky clean they behave. Whether it be an arrogant Salt Lake City native who claims to have a belief, but as it sounds, more of biased opinion because of some past experience that has nothing to do with Romney, or you are just like the rest of the nation criticizing Romney for his “astonishing” rise to the top of the GOP race, as long as Fred Thompson does not enter, which he is supposed to do next week. Get over McConkie and Romney meeting with the Mormon Church, you sound like the southerners who criticised Kennedy, when he was campaigning. Learn from the past and move on with the future.
Out
USA