Letourneau Responds to Khan’s Allegations; Calls for *Her* Removal

 

I’d like to thank DPOC North Vice Chair Jeff LeTourneau for ruining the start of an Oscars party at my house’ my phone started buzzing shortly after 4PM with news he had responded to allegations of bullying by Irvine City Council member Farrah Khan at the January elections meeting by doubling down on calling her a liar and demanding her removal for “bullying” Michael Fox.

This charge brought serious laughter on the part of those who called me.  LeTourneau and Fox have a track record and paper trail when it comes to bullying.

Here’s the text of Letourneau’s email followed by a cut and paste of the letter.  Should be a fun meeting tonight that I have to miss due to a business commitment.  Some commentary/context afterwards but a deeper dive later.

 

Dear Central Committee Members and Officers,

Attached please find my response to Ms. Khan’s false, inappropriate and destructive allegations.  

I apologize that this is necessary but I feel that her allegations cannot stand without a full response.

 Respectfully,

Jeff LeTourneau

 

 

February 24, 2019

Chair Briceno, Executive Board and Central Committee Members.

At a time when all efforts should and must be focused on the upcoming OC Supervisor special election, and at a time when the DPOC needs to be prepared for the re-election of Senator Newman and the defense of our historic and hard won 2018 gains, I sadly find myself in a position where I must address the blatantly false and politically motivated attacks against me by Ms. Khan. Additionally, as a means of defense, and based on her assertions that terse language is grounds for removal I must file counter charges against her for the documented (see below) profane and inappropriate attacks by her as an officer on a fellow Executive Board Member during a nine-member text thread weeks before the 2018 election and call for her removal as a DPOC member.

Background:

In order to address this matter, it is necessary to explain the context of the alleged incident. On the day prior to the DPOC officer election, Ms. Khan, under the title of her DPOC Officer status and Council Member status, inappropriately posted a political hit piece against me on Facebook. The post called for persons to run against me and in the next paragraph clearly leveled charges of bullying etc. Unfortunately, the post backfired and instead was redirected toward DPOC Member and now Western Vice-Chair Victor Valladeras. For approximately the next six hours ,Victor was viciously and inappropriately attacked by several persons, including DPOC member Dan C, who as you will recall, has been censured by the DPOC for harassment of DPOC staff. Ms. Khan had the opportunity to stop these attacks at any time by simply removing the post, but she chose not to do so as they aided her support for Victor’s opponent and my defeat.

Election Day Monday, January 14, 2019:

Following the DPOC officer elections, in which I ran unopposed and was elected unanimously, I left the stage and walked toward the kitchen to obtain a bottle of water. At this time, I observed Ms. Khan walking toward me with a stern look on her face and thought, in light of the last 24 hours, this cannot be good. When she approached, I did not allow her to begin speaking with me and instead had the following interaction with her. I told her that I believed that the post she had made the prior day and the subsequent vicious attacks on Victor, which she allowed to occur, were “evil.” (I did not even say she was evil.) I then told her that I believed that due to the outrage it had caused, evidenced by Alyssa’s comments and Ada’s nomination and endorsement of Victor, she had turned what I believed was probable victory for Brandon by 8 votes into a 5-vote victory for Victor. I told her she has to own this, and she alone was responsible for Brandon’s loss. She denied attacking Victor and as she turned to walk away I shared with her that as Chair of the By Laws Committee I had already been approached by three persons inquiring as to whether the DPOC could discipline her due to her first two Commission appointments; one being a right wing Republican who has funded attacks against DPOC Central Committee Member and Irvine Council Member Melissa Fox, and the second, another right wing Republican who had recently lead a racist and anti-homeless attack on the OCBOS plan for a homeless project in/near the Great Park. I informed each of them that there was no authority to discipline her for these acts and they needed to be dealt with at the Council level, at the next election cycle, or through a political recall. I ended my discussion by saying that if three people are already threatening to recall her after only one month in office, she should be very concerned. To be clear, I at no time revealed the names of the persons or asserted or even hinted that I would participate in or be supportive of their efforts in any manner!

Following this discussion, I returned to the stage and shortly thereafter I was approached by Victor asking me what I had said to Ms. Khan. He stated that she was in the parking lot, crying and texting people that I had called her a F-cking B-tch and had threatened to recall her, neither of which has any relationship with the truth. In fact, the assertion that anyone, in a room filled with almost 200 people including members of the press, would make such statements to a Central Committee member and public official for many or all to hear is so ludicrous as to defy belief and would be comical if it had not turned into this destructive behavior by Ms. Khan.

10-12-18 Text from Farah Khan to Michael Fox in a 9-member string including Fran, Jim P, Myself, Deborah S. Victor, Luis A. Denise P. and Florice H.

Call For Removal of Farah Khan From DPOC:

The above noted reference is a screen shot whereby Ms. Khan inappropriately and unprofessionally verbally attacked Executive Committee Member Michael Fox with profane language after Ms. Khan, after first agreeing to proceed with harassment charges against Dan C , then refused to proceed due to fear of political retaliation by Dan C and the Liberal OC against her on the eve of her election. (Note: The full version of the stream will be provided in the near future in which I urge the participants to be civil in their discourse and to find common ground) Michael and several other Board Members were incensed that her backtracking was placing the safety and wellbeing of the staff and the DPOC in grave danger for her own political expediency. It should be noted that neither I, nor any other person privy to this interaction, felt it was necessary or productive to file charges against Ms. Khan at this or any later time as it was not in the best interest of the organization and it was counterproductive to our efforts leading up the November election.

Therefore, although I still believe that verbal discourse, even in a harsh manner is in no way grounds for calls for removal, I find myself in a position that if Ms. Khan can proceed in this manner with unverifiable and outrageous falsehoods as a means of achieving what she was not able to accomplish at the ballot box, then the same standards need to apply to her as well relating her verifiable attacks on Michael Fox using harsh profanity in an intimidating fashion.

I conclude with my assertion that I am ready willing and able to meet with all parties and bring resolution to this manner so that we can get back to the immediacy of our political efforts. I have offered to meet with Ms. Khan on more than one occasion and she has refused. My offer stands. I will not however, apologize for comments or threats of recall that I never made. At some point, sanity has to return to this process.

Please feel free to reach out to me at any time.

jeff@ocdemocrats.org

Phone Number Redacted

Respectfully,

Jeff Letourneau

 

Well, interesting piece of work here.

In regards to sections about me, I saw and participated in the Facebook post Khan put up.  She never mentioned Letourneau by name and only asked if another Central Committee member wished to run.  That’s only an attack to someone with thin skin.

Someone asked “why aren’t you supporting Victor?” (Valladares).  I offered my support for Brandon as an established club leader of Costa Mesa Democrats, a lawyer who is professionally accomplished, and when pressed I offered that Victor is a young man who is dealing with mistakes made as a younger man.  I praised his activism in Huntington Beach.  Others on the string I don’t know began to accuse me of lying about Victor.  I’m a lot of things but not a liar.  Victor has a record in the courts and a challenging relationship with his ex-wife who asked to address the party but was denied the opportunity to do so.  In any contentious divorce, where young children are involved, the truth in somewhere in the middle.  I have copied of the court documents regarding Victor and I have never published them out of respect for his activism.  And I agree with Alyssa Napuri that the Democratic Party is the party of second chances.  And apparently the Party of fourth, fifth and sixth chances too.  But by all means, Jeff, keep calling me a liar because I stated a preference on information most of the Central Committee did not have.

Victor’s victory was a direct result of Chair Briceno’s nomination of him.  LeTourneau’s claim that Brandon Love’s loss was somehow Farrah Khan’s fault is laughable on its face.  The room was Ada’s that night and everyone knew it.

As far as Khan’s “refused to proceed due to fear of political retaliation by Dan C and the Liberal OC against her on the eve of her election charge, what a crock.  Shortly after receiving the letter about the October meeting, I began contacted members of the Central Committee.  I owned up to text messages sent to a staffer and explain my interaction with another.  When I spoke to Khan, whom I had already made the maximum contribution for her election, it was to assure her I would not ask for the contribution back and that she had my continued support for City Council.  I asked her about what she saw at the August meeting because I honestly didn’t see her near me as I spoke to our party’s Comms director.  That interaction was at the end of the meeting with dozens of people around, so any alleged loud shouting certainly would have been heard.  Letourneau is saying there’s no way he could have said what he allegedly said t Khan in a room full of people while claiming lots of witnesses to me pounding my fist and yelling at a staffer in August.

Here’s what Letourneau left out of his note to the party.

Michael Fox was quietly replaced as Florence Hoffman’s AD-68 alternate late last year, effectively ending his term on the e-Board.  Because he’s an alternate, he serves at the whim of his elected central Committee member.  Many believe the attempt to remove me from the Central Committee in October was to grant him my spot in AD-68 so he could continue.  And the charges were really a pre-text to remove me because neither guy likes the comments I allow on this blog or some of the posts … Michael Vickerman/John Scott Horner III anyone?  How about “The LeTourneau Line?”

It is believed Hoffman removed Fox due to complaints by other members — including one letter I have a copy of to then Chair Fran Sdao — for Fox’s bullying of another member.  Michael Fox remains an alternate to Hoffman in her role as Regional Director.  But to file a complaint against Khan and call for her removal for “bullying” Michael Fox is just rich.  Get ready for this action by Jeff to trigger others to file complaints with the new chair against Fox and perhaps LeTourneau as well.

So Khan told Fox to fuck himself.  Wow.  Let’s review:

• LeTourneau bullied IUSD trustee Sharon Wallin in 2014 which left her in tears and his efforts denied Wallin — the longest standing elected Democrat in Irvine — the party’s endorsement.  he did not apologize.
• Letourneau’s bullied a gay Republican activist that was a viral video Republicans used to raise money to defeat Josh Newman using words that anyone else would be sanctioned for; he did apologize for this.
• He admitted to sending a teddy bear stuffed with medical marijuana based oils to a family member back East, which is a felony, and did so during public comments of an Anaheim city council meeting.
• He played a part in trying to get Dave Min to change support on a position in exchange for an endorsement during Min’s Congressional run and recently, in front of witnesses, tried to get Min to withdraw from the State Senate race.
• Khan has a commissioner on her team that’s a Republican who’s attacked Melissa Fox? LeTourneau has a bunch of  photos with Tom Tait, former Anaheim mayor, who’s Tait Family Trust contributed to significant IEs that attacked Democrats in Anaheim and Irvine.

I won’t be at tonight’s meeting due to a business commitment.  Looks to be a barnburner.  But when it comes to issues of the truth, I trust Khan completely over anything that comes out of Jeff’s mouth.  The schism in the party is there.  Likely not enough votes on either side to remove anyone.  But in today’s #MeToo world, I still believe Farrah.  #IBelieveFarrah.