Bob Beauprez’s feckless gubernatorial campaign of 2006 was well on its way to becoming a footnote in the state’s political history when a surprising bit of news popped last week.
Federal prosecutors filed charges against an immigration agent who has been accused of accessing restricted information that later was used in an attack ad crafted by the Beauprez camp.
Though the tactic was ultimately unsuccessful — to say the least, judging by Bill Ritter’s big win — the charges send an important message.
Political operatives and others willing to do the wrong thing for what they think are the right reasons would do well to take heed that there are limits to the lengths they can go to in digging up dirt on opponents.
Politics has often been cast as a game where even the most underhanded tricks are seen as standard operating procedure. But if agent Cory Voorhis did what he is accused of doing, then he crossed the line.
Voorhis, who has been characterized as a dedicated agent for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, delved into a restricted law-enforcement database to check criminal histories of several people, according to charges filed in U.S. District Court in Denver.
The Beauprez ad said that an illegal immigrant got a lenient plea bargain from Ritter’s office, when Ritter was Denver district attorney. The ad said the illegal immigrant went on to commit a sex crime in California.
At the time, Ritter’s campaign cried foul. In trying to get to the bottom of the allegations in the ad, they were unable to verify details because they couldn’t access the National Crime Information Center database.
Although Beauprez has not ever publicly said who gave the information to his campaign, he has described the source as “a conscientious member of law enforcement.”
Federal authorities launched an investigation that went on for a year and seemed, to outsiders, like it was going nowhere.
But then the three misdemeanor charges were filed last week and the tactics of the 2006 Colorado gubernatorial campaign once again became fodder for politicos and bloggers.
Beauprez, who seems to be tone-deaf to the episode, called the charges “kind of a tragedy.”
“He thought he saw a big injustice and he wanted to do something about it,” Beauprez told The Post.
The reaction of the former congressman is as disconcerting now as it was last year, when he consistently defended the actions of Voorhis.
But perhaps it will serve as a wakeup call for others who are contemplating upcoming campaigns and trying to figure out how to craft the perfect political atom bomb: There are limits and rules — even in politics.
