Last August, a local law office hosted a news conference in which several big-name San Diego Democratic politicians attended. The event focused around Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer’s endorsement of congressional candidate Scott Peters. While the press was invited, the event was fairly exclusive. Journalists were asked to RSVP in order to get past the event’s security.
No one from The Daily Aztec RSVP’d. However, one young man, allegedly San Diego State student Jonathan Staab, approached one of Peters’ campaign interns working at the event and claimed he was a reporter from The Daily Aztec. In reality, he was there as a tracker for the Republican Party. Staab’s job was to attend and video record Peters’ public appearances during his campaign.
Staab’s press credentials weren’t checked, and Communications Director of the Peters campaign and SDSU graduate MaryAnne Pintar let Staab in the event, despite his name not being on the guest list.
“I felt like I wanted to let him in because he’s my alma mater and a journalism student,” Pintar said. “We let him come in, and I asked him again and he said he was a student who worked for The Daily Aztec.”
He was allowed into the law office to participate in the news conference, but it wasn’t long before his identity was revealed.
“A member of another Democratic campaign approached me and asked, ‘Why did you let the Republican party tracker in?’ They pointed (Staab) out to me,” Pintar said.
Pintar approached Staab and asked whether he was actually representing The Daily Aztec. For the third time, he asserted he was. She asked for a fourth time, and he finally came clean.
“He finally said ‘No, I work for the Republican Party,’” Pintar said. “This really caught me by surprise, since we asked him once, twice, three times on a secure floor, at a law office, with security, and he flat-out lied to get in.”
He was asked to leave, but continues to attend all of Peters’ events open to the public. Pintar said the Peters campaign doesn’t hold anything against him.
“What’s troubling to me is that people who should know better asked a young man, presumably a student, to flat-out lie in order to get into an event that’s supposed to be a secure one,” Pintar said.
Todd Mitchel, the campaign manager for Peters’ incumbent opponent, Brian Bilbray, said there’s no connection between Staab and Bilbray’s campaign.
“He doesn’t represent us, and we don’t pay him,” Mitchel said.
Secretary of the Republican Party of San Diego County, Derrick Roach couldn’t pinpoint Staab’s employer either.
“If he was an employee of the (Republican Party of San Diego County), I would know,” Roach said. “It’s possible he’s a volunteer and I just haven’t met him.”
On Staab’s Facebook page, it states he’s a student at SDSU. It also lists two employers, the Republican Party and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Trackers, according to Pintar, follow candidates of the opposition party simply in the hopes to capture that “gotcha” moment. Perhaps Staab was hoping to capture some behind- closed-doors comments detrimental to the Peters campaign that would parallel Gov. Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments at his thought-to- be private fundraiser.
“I know the Bilbray’s, and to me, I don’t think that’s something they would condone,” Roach said. “They’ve been around too long to get involved in that stuff.”
Regardless of which office signs his paychecks, he was clearly there, under false pretenses, aiding the Republican Party and their interest in the congressional race between Peters and Bilbray. While it’s unclear whether Bilbray or his staff were aware of this, whose payroll Staab is on or if he was told to lie about his identity to get into the private event supporting a democratic candidate, it doesn’t bode well for those attempting to deny the rampant dishonesty that dominates modern-day elections.
