The right-leaning blogger who uncovered Democratic Rep. Michael Merrifield’s e-mail damning charter school supporters says his connection to a website for Senate Republicans is minimal.
Brad Jones, a 23-year-old political consultant, helped get ColoradoSenateNews.com online and was the site’s registrant – until this week.
His name was removed after the left-leaning ColoradoConfidential .org questioned Jones’ ties to the Senate minority’s communications office.
Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, said there is no connection between Senate Republicans and the open-records request Jones filed to get Merrifield’s e-mail.
“Nobody in this office knew anything about it until after it happened,” he said. But, McElhany added, it wouldn’t matter if they did.
Merrifield, who is battling throat cancer, stepped down as chairman of the House Education Committee last week, citing his health and his anti-charter-school remark.
In the e-mail to his Senate counterpart, Merrifield said, “There must be a special place in hell” for backers of school vouchers, privatization and charter schools.
On Wednesday, he called the Jones connection “very suspicious but not surprising.”
Jones’ Republican ties fueled rumors of a right-wing conspiracy to take down Merrifield.
Jones said people were just trying to create controversy by making a big deal out of the registrant name for ColoradoSenateNews .com.
“Any accusation that there is some massive amount of coordination between that and any other project I have really isn’t accurate,” he said.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
