May 04, 2012 04:58 PM UTC

Peck, Lies, And Videotape

• 11 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Colorado Ethics Watch responds to the full Jessica Peck video:

In response to ColoradoPols.com’s release of the complete, unedited video of OGI Director Peck’s speech to the Colorado Republican Business Coalition, Ethics Watch Director Luis Toro released the following statement:

“We’re pleased that the complete video has come to light and believe it confirms our suspicions about OGI.  It is well-known in the nonprofit world that charitable organizations can’t devote resources to intervening on behalf of candidates for office, and yet in this video Ms. Peck appears to be asking for contributions to help OGI do exactly that.”

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Westword’s Michael Roberts follows up on the story of a complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service against Jessica Peck of the right-leaning Open Government Institute of Colorado this week, based on video clips of a speech she gave last month to the Colorado Republican Business Coalition originally posted by this blog.

First, what Ms. Peck claims about our video clips:

Colorado Ethics Watch requested an IRS investigation into the nonprofit status of Open Government Institute of Colorado based on a video featuring OGI’s executive director, Jessica Peck. The claim: OGI was working to benefit Congressman Mike Coffman, who’s running for reelection. In response, Peck maintains that “this attack is utterly baseless.”

…In response to an interview request from Westword on this topic, Peck — previously a medical marijuana attorney who practiced under her married name, Jessica Peck Corry — offered a release of her own. In it, she states:

“This pathetic and unethical attempt to slander us has no basis in fact and comes from CEW’s tired old playbook of lobbing attacks against anyone it perceives as a competitive threat to its organization. CEW has misstated federal rules for nonprofit advocacy and utilized a sloppy secret video edited to intentionally misrepresent my statements at a recent event.”

How so? In the release, she maintains that the video cuts off the remainder of her sentence, in which she supplement[s] the description of herself as a partisan Republican by disclosing that “she is also the executive director of a nonprofit organization focused on achieving nonpartisan objectives.” [Pols emphasis]

Now, the first two clips we were forwarded were only of those brief snippets–we didn’t cut this video, or edit it at all other than to add a few subtitles because the audio can be a little hard to make out. At no point did we attempt to take any quote out of its proper context.

And as you’re about to learn, Jessica Peck is lying about the “remainder of her sentence.”

We received yesterday the complete presentation given by Ms. Peck to the CRBC luncheon on April 20th. In the first half above, you can see that the two previous clips were basically contiguous. But most importantly, you can hear how Ms. Peck actually continues after the words (0:53) “I come here as a partisan Republican,” and the words that come out of her unedited mouth are not about her new work as director of a nonpartisan ethics group. Or anything of the kind. She in fact talks about her unsuccessful 2004 run for the state Senate as a GOP candidate and thanks those present for supporting her then.

At about 1:45, well after the sentence in question, she does say the words “now that I’ve taken off my partisan hat,” but she really doesn’t seem to do that. After a brief but interesting description of the interplay between her “nonpartisan watchdog” and GOP-aligned public affairs firm, by 3:15 she is discussing Adam Schrager’s Blueprint, and at at 3:57 she says, “We learned to steal. Democrats steal, right? …We’ve stolen their Blueprint and we hope to improve upon it.”

Just past five minutes she says, “this is war. This is not a sport for the weak.”

Here is the second half of Ms. Peck’s roughly 17 minute unedited presentation. Remember when she promised Rep. Mike Coffman that she would come back to things she’s working on that could “benefit you in your endeavors in November?” At 4:10 into part 2, she describes the complaint filed against Coffman’s challenger, Rep. Joe Miklosi.

Peck wraps up with a fundraising pitch, saying she needs to raise “$100,000 before the election,” and offers to provide advice to candidates or anyone else who asks for it. Between Peck’s introduction to Rep. Coffman on things she’s “working on” to “benefit you in your endeavors in November,” the description of her work against Coffman’s opponent, and the solicitation for money at the end, there could well be enough here to substantiate and even strengthen Colorado Ethics Watch’s complaint. We don’t claim to have fully digested everything in this presentation, either–these are just a few highlights that caught our eye. Please watch the entire presentation for yourselves and tell us what you hear.

Bottom line: Peck’s unedited speech contains a wealth of insight for Democrats about the makeup and strategy of conservative message groups for the 2012 election. It’s fascinating for that alone. For sheer gossip value, this is every bit as good as any leaked Democratic strategy memos from previous elections–and nobody can dispute the “context” or truthfulness anymore.

Above all folks, never, ever call somebody a liar, or tell lies, when they have you on camera.