October 07, 2010 07:18 PM UTC

Golyansky, Ken Buck--And Shawn Mitchell

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: We received a screenshot a little while ago from Facebook (after the jump)–state Sen. Shawn Mitchell has apparently been defending Ken Buck regarding this scandal as it’s shared around social networks, which makes sense seeing as how his reputation is kind of wrapped up in it too. Unfortunately, it’s not going very well from the look of this screenshot…

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With a new TV spot in heavy circulation today, exposing GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck’s efforts while employed as a federal prosecutor to undermine a firearms case against a Denver pawn shop owner with Republican political connections, we wanted to briefly revisit the key facts of this scandal–for which there has been no significant news reporting since Allison Sherry of the Denver newspaper wrote about it last June. You’ll recall that Buck’s reprimand and subsequent resignation from the U.S. Attorney’s office over this scandal was originally brought to light by Buck’s opponent Jane Norton during the GOP primary.

According to the original report, Buck was contacted by now-state Sen. Shawn Mitchell, allegedly asking for “recommendations” for a good defense attorney for Greg Golyansky. Now, the first thing you’ll find kind of odd here is the idea that a Republican politician (or anyone, for that matter) would call someone who works in the prosecuting attorney’s office, for help finding a defense attorney against a case that same office is prosecuting. That’s a little like asking the opposing team’s coach to help with your playbook, isn’t it? Regardless, Mitchell apparently conveyed Buck’s recommendation of a certain attorney back to Golyansky, and Stephen Peters was retained.

This is where it became a career-jeopardizing ethics problem for Buck: Peters, the defense attorney for the Golyanskys, circled back with Buck before the trial began–and Buck, an attorney in the prosecutor’s office, gave Peters information about disagreements within the office that Peters then used to attack the case against Golyansky. When Buck did that, he committed an ethical violation so grave that his career in the U.S. Attorney’s office was over in all but formality. Think for a moment about the betrayal of trust it represents within a prosecutor’s office, for an attorney on staff to undermine a case by directly colluding with the defense.

And, as you can imagine, several multi-part questions now present themselves:

1. What was now-Sen. Shawn Mitchell’s motivation in helping to defend this pawn shop owner in Denver from gun peddling charges? How did he become aware of this case? What is Sen. Mitchell’s relationship to Golyansky? Now that Golyansky has emerged as the (really horrible) spokesman for several conservative state ballot initiatives this year, theories abound. How long has Golyansky been involved with GOP politics?

2. Why would Mitchell approach an attorney in a prosecutor’s office for “recommendations” on a defense attorney in a case being prosecuted by that office? What else about the case was discussed between Mitchell and Buck when Mitchell asked for this “recommendation,” and what did Mitchell pass on to Golyansky’s attorney before Peters called Buck? Why did this defense attorney feel similarly empowered to call Buck and ask him about details of this case?

3. Maybe the big one–why did Ken Buck fail to disclose anything about this case, and the changes it forced in his career, until Jane Norton exposed it? It’s certainly severe enough–a formal reprimand from none other than John Suthers, followed two months later by a quiet resignation from the U.S. Attorney’s office–that it should have been publicly front-loaded by his campaign if he ever intended to get past it. The opposition should never have been the ones to bring this out, even though Buck’s frank admission that it was wrong after it was exposed was the right thing to do. Perhaps it’s a holdover from his days as a unvetted longshot, but the fact is that Buck was never going to get to November without this being made an issue, even if Norton had never used it.

And like it or not, to the tune of $750,000 in soccer-mom unnerving media buys, it’s an issue.