A staffer for California Republican House candidate Carl DeMaio remained in a high-level campaign position for a week after a plagiarism scandal broke, according to internal emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The emails shed light on a key week in May when the DeMaio campaign was criticized for plagiarizing a magazine article.
The campaign later fired staffer Todd Bosnich and said months later that it was because he was responsible for the plagiarism. But Bosnich now says that the real reason he lost his job was that he confronted DeMaio for sexually harassing him.
The scandal began on May 12, when National Journal reported that a DeMaio campaign report on pensions plagiarized one of its articles. In the initial report, DeMaio apologized and took full responsibility for the lapse.
“I don’t throw my staff under the bus,” he told the magazine.
For the next several days, it appears the campaign did not take any action against Bosnich and continued assigning him long-term projects.
In a May 15 email to top campaign staffers and consultant Richard Grenell, DeMaio listed assignments for Bosnich, including developing major new policies and doing opposition research on Democratic candidate Scott Peters.
Bosnich’s assignments include “draft infrastructure plan,” “finalizing schedule for infrastructure press conference,” “start working on Economic Plan/Pathway to Prosperity,” “finish tally (and documentation) on all $ given by unions to Scott Peters (direct and IE),” “finish tally (and documentation) on all PAC money to SP” and “track peters.”
The email is similar to others sent to staffers during the campaign.
Another email, sent by DeMaio on May 5, similarly lists as an assignment for “Ric” — presumably Grenell — “LA Times bullshit spin” and “keep pushing LGBT responses to haters.”
The DeMaio campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the emails.
A lawyer for Bosnich says he was fired on May 19, a week after the plagiarism story ran in National Journal. He told CNN earlier this month that DeMaio sexually harassed him and that the day after he confronted DeMaio about the behavior, he was fired.
DeMaio told CNN that Bosnich was fired because he had a role in the plagiarism scandal.
The DeMaio campaign would not confirm when Bosnich was fired and did not publicize a staff shakeup related to the plagiarism scandal at the time.
