June 01, 2011 06:39 PM UTC

Radio hosts can't get Tipton to clarify when daughter got job offer

• 13 Comments
• by: Jason Salzman

(Tipton had better straighten this out, and soon. In politics the coverup is almost always worse than the crime, and Tipton’s in danger of making this look like a bigger scandal (whether it is or not) by not getting his story straight. – promoted by Colorado Pols)

In another exemplary radio interview on the conservative Steamboat Springs Cari and Rob Show yesterday, hosts Rob Douglas and Cari Hermancinski grilled Rep. Scott Tipton, whom they call a House-freshman “canary in the coal mine,” about his daughter’s job with technology company whose licensed products are sold by other companies to congressional offices.

The two hosts were particularly direct with Tipton about the offer and start date of his daughter’s job with the Washington DC firm.

On April 7, on the same radio show, Tipton said the company “offered it [the job] to her [his daughter] before the election.”

To make sure he had it straight April 7, host Rob Douglas asked Tipton if his daughter had started her job “before the outcome of the last election.”

Tipton said, “Yes.”

But The Denver Post reported Friday that Tipton’s daughter started full-time in January, when Tipton took office.

Douglas tried unsuccessfully yesterday to get the story straight.

Douglas: Your daughter went to work for Broadnet officially when?

Tipton: I think she started right after the Christmas term.

Douglas: When was she offered that job?

Tipton: It was my understanding after she had done her internship here a year or so ago, that when she was getting ready to graduate from college, that they had a job for her.

Douglas: Was there an official offer made to her from Broadnet?

Tipton: You know Rob, I can’t tell ya. We’re getting into the weeds of family business and her personal business as well. I can’t give you the date because I don’t monitor it that closely.

Douglas: Can you get us that date after you get to Washington?

Tipton: I can probably ask her if she chooses. This has been very difficult on her because she hasn’t done anything wrong.

Douglas is right to be annoyed by the strange squirrelliness on Tipton’s part. (And he expressed his frustration in greater detail to the Colorado Independent.)

Douglas  should ask Tipton directly if his daughter’s job was tied to his congressional victory. It’s a reasonable question, given that Tipton’s daughter has been using her father’s name in letters to members of Congress.

You might think Douglas is going nowhere with his questions about when the job offer was made to Tipton’s daughter, and you may be right, especially since Broadnet is owned by Tipton’s nephew and Tipton’s daughter had a part-time job with the company before she started work full-time.

Still, it’s a reasonable question and Douglas should stay after it.

My guess is that Douglas will follow-up, especially because his show apparently was the first media outlet to question Tipton, in an April 7 interview, about his daughter’s job with Broadnet.

Instead of crediting the Cari and Rob Show with raising the issue first, Tipton’s spokesperson blamed Democrat Nancy Pelosi for sending a “lap-dog” to Colorado to “fire up the rumor mill with a cheap Washington political attack on a 22-year-old girl,” according to Politico.

Asked by Douglas and Hermancinski for evidence that Pelosi was pushing the story about his daughter and Broadnet, Tipton acknowledged he had no such evidence. “Maybe it was an assumption,” he said.

The Cari and Rob Show’s questioning of Tipton is getting noticed. Last month, Tipton admitted he’s lost trust in House Speaker Boehner, after he agreed to a budget compromise opposed by Tipton.

Tipton later backtracked, saying to a national blog that has confidence in Boehner, but he never returned to the Cari and Rob Show to explain why he has a more positive view of Boehner, despite promises by both Douglas and Tipton that he would do so.