NEWPORT BEACH, CA — Today, New OC Future reported a last minute campaign expenditure to attack technology entrepreneur and businessman Harley Rouda’s campaign in the race for California’s 48th District.
The move, which was reported in the wake of the Rouda campaign’s joint TV media blitz with the Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee (DCCC), underscores the GOP’s fear of Harley Rouda in a general election.
Recently, Mother Jones detailed a report filed in 2009 against Democratic challenger Hans Kierstand that accused him of sexual misconduct and physical abuse, greatly damaging his candidacy. Consequently, New OC Future and other Republican special interest groups are preparing to attack who they see as the top Democratic candidate in the race, Harley Rouda.
Rouda’s campaign manager Michael McLaughlin released the following statement in response to the report:
“Washington special interests know that Harley Rouda is the only Democrat in position to advance to the general election. That’s why they are committing thousands of dollars to attack Harley. By building a broad coalition of working families, grassroots supporters, environmentalists and elected officials, Harley has built a campaign that can win in June and November. Right-wing special interest groups know that the only way to prop up the failed Donald Trump/Scott Baugh agenda is to attack Harley Rouda. Our supporters stand ready to defend Harley and continue the important work needed to move Orange County forward.”
For more information, please visit www.HarleyforCongress.com.
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Editor’s note: The MotherJones article is worth a read, but the story rehash’s complaints against Democrat Hans Kierstead and actually exonerates him of the charges he was accused of. The DownWithTyranny blog, which published the charges, says it got the documents from the DCCC and the DCCC denies this.
From the story:
A closer read of the entire 14-page complaint, along with related court documents, reveals a bizarre story that involves a $6 million lawsuit, a piece of rock’n’roll art, a fictional prison escape, music legend Paul McCartney, and a man with a serious grudge against Keirstead.
It’s unclear who dropped the oppo research at the center of this saga. Keirstead says Rouda’s campaign has been circulating the UCI complaint behind the scenes for months. Rouda’s campaign manager, Michael McLaughlin, denies this. “Hans should be more concerned about explaining his negligent behavior to voters and less concerned about who found out first about his questionable past,” he says. Down with Tyranny blogger Howie Klein claims to have received the document from someone inside the DCCC. Yet Meredith Kelly, the DCCC’s communications director, says, “No one at the DCCC gave Howie Klein that document.”
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The allegations sparked an investigation by Janis Wallace, a senior investigator at UCI’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. In September 2009, she found all of the allegations against Keirstead to be “unfounded” and “lacking in evidence.” She noted that the then-unnamed whistleblower admitted that he had “no first-hand knowledge of [the] events” he had detailed in his complaint.
UCI officially exonerated Keirstead. Yet some people interviewed by the investigator described an atmosphere in Keirstead’s lab in which rumors ran rampant and one student accused another of “fucking the boss.” However, no one said they had witnessed any inappropriate behavior between Keirstead and his students or staff. Several people referred to him as a “rock star,” and that his lab could be “a cesspool for rumors.”
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It eventually came out that the author of the whistleblower complaint was a businessman named Keith Roizman, who’d had a dramatic falling out with Keirstead in 2009. Roizman, the former president of a company called Ziraffa Inc., had attempted to claim a proprietary interest in some of Keirstead’s scientific developments, but was rebuffed by the university. He submitted a complaint with UCI accusing Keirstead of conflicts of interest, misappropriating funds, accepting an illegal kickback, and receiving funding “under false pretenses.” The university launched an investigation and found Roizman’s claims “unfounded.” (Roizman could not be reached for comment.)
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In a mediation brief, Keirstead’s lawyers detailed Roizman’s lengthy “smear campaign” to peg Keirstead as “a drug and woman abuser” because he had been shut out of Keirstead’s research. One deposition in the case was closed after Keirstead answered a question about Roizman’s threats and Roizman muttered, “What a fucking liar.”
In court, Keirstead’s legal team played recordings from messages left by Roizman on his former business partner’s phone, telling him he was implicated in the “charges I’m filing against Keirstead and UCI.” He declared: “I am now ratcheting this up to a level that there will be no way out of it…I’m taking you all fucking down.” In 2013, the lawsuit was thrown out.
While the university found no misbehavior by Keirstead and the lawsuit mostly revealed his falling out with Roizman, their disclosure hints that more dirt may be dug up in the final weeks before the closely-watched primary. Is there is anything else that might come to light that Keirstead would like to address now? “Frankly, it’s a whisper campaign, and now it’s bubbling up because we’re getting so close,” he says. “And to be clear with you: No. I have never had any Me Too-type offense in my life.”