"It bothers me that a judicial process would even have the appearance of any kind of cooperation with any political campaign," he said.
Weldon’s source, however, later said he never told the congressman that.
|
|
Weldon has charged that the investigation was timed to inflict maximum damage on his re-election campaign. Speaking to reporters after a House Aviation Subcommittee meeting Wednesday afternoon, he said the retired FBI agent, Gregory Auld, confirmed the night before that a Sestak worker "was bragging that three weeks ago they knew this was going to come down."
"That, to me, is absolutely outrageous," Weldon said. "If that occurred, it means that someone in the Justice Department was coordinating whatever was happening with a political campaign."
Except it didn’t happen, according to Auld, who told an entirely different story.
"No, that’s not what happened," he said in a phone interview, when asked about Weldon’s statements.
Auld, a retired FBI agent from Drexel Hill, said a man at a local gym - he refers to him as "Grumpy" because he doesn’t know his name - told him Tuesday that another man in a Sestak shirt said three weeks ago that "something big" would happen to Weldon last weekend. Auld then approached the Sestak supporter, who told him, "We kind of sniffed this out."
"I said, ‘You guys knew about this?’ and he didn’t say anything," Auld said, adding that it was the other man, "Grumpy," who said he had heard from the Sestak worker that "something big was going to come down on Weldon."
"He didn’t say, ‘We knew,’ he just said, ‘We sniffed it out,’" Auld said of his conversation with the latter individual.
Sestak spokesman Ryan Rudominer said, "The idea that our campaign has any influence over the FBI or the Republican-led Justice Department is laughable." He said the campaign had no prior knowledge of the investigation.
Nonetheless, Weldon believes he has made enemies within the department that may have leaked information to harm his campaign.
"You all know that bureaucrats don’t change with presidential leadership at the top. You know that, come on," he said. "Bureaucrats are in office from one administration to another, whether it’s in the CIA, or the DIA or the State Department or the Defense Department or the Justice Department, and this obviously did not start at the top. It obviously came from the bureaucracy."
"I’m telling you," he added, "a retired FBI agent whom I have named, came to me and said that a (Sestak) campaign worker told him three weeks ago that this was going to happen. That is what it is."
Auld has done security work for Weldon and said he decided to phone him Tuesday because he thought his conversation at the gym "should really be explored."
"The inference was that something was in the works, but he was never specific as to what it was," Auld said of the man wearing the Sestak shirt.
Auld is known for uncovering hidden cameras and other surveillance equipment in the Folcroft police station as part of an unrelated case involving former borough manager Anthony Truscello.
Wednesday’s bizarre series of events came as conservative columnist Robert Novak declared the Weldon campaign "dead in the water" -- regardless of whether he is innocent or guilty of the allegations against him. Novak wrote that the race was ripe for a "likely Democratic takeover."
Congressional Quarterly has also given Sestak, a retired Navy admiral, an edge in the race in light of the federal investigation.
When the Los Angeles Times reported in 2004 that Weldon may have assisted Solutions North America, the firm owned by his daughter and Sexton, his attorney blamed the report on State Department officials who resented Weldon involving himself in foreign policy.
"They react to Jesse Jackson the same way they react to Curt," attorney William Canfield told the Daily Times in April 2004. "They’ve basically turned this into a turf war."
Weldon voluntarily provided the House Ethics Committee with documentation relevant to the story and said he later received a letter "closing the case." He said he is seeking the advice of his current attorney, William Winning, before releasing that letter.
Wednesday was the first time in which Weldon sought to tie the Sestak campaign directly into what he believes is a politically motivated plot to unseat him.
"To me, this is borderline delusional. It really is," said David Landau, Sestak’s senior campaign adviser. "You have to be delusional to think for one second that anybody associated with the Democratic Party anywhere could possibly have something to do with this."
But, Landau added, "I can appreciate why he’s lashing out. It’s because he has very serious problems right now."
Weldon also said he had received an e-mail indicating that his Democratic predecessor in the 7th District, the Rev. Bob Edgar, was also aware of the investigation prior to newspaper reports. Edgar, who attended a Sestak fundraiser last month, denied the claim. "I knew nothing about it other than what I learned last Friday," he said Wednesday.
The Washington Post reported this week that wiretaps of Washington-area cell phone were authorized months ago and that the evidence has been presented to a grand jury. Weldon said he hasn’t been contacted. As the election approaches, he continues to maintain his innocence.
"There was never any request or any inference by me for my daughter to be hired by anyone," he said.
Daily Times staff writer Rose Quinn contributed to this report.
