The governor's office yesterday released a February e-mail from [Republican whistle-blower Michelle] Lane, a former state agency employee and Ehrlich congressional volunteer, which also contained personal messages Lane exchanged with Joseph F. Steffen Jr. Steffen, known as the "Prince of Darkness" who worked on Ehrlich campaigns for years, is the administration staffer who resigned after acknowledging he participated in Internet rumors about [Baltimore Mayor and prospective candidate for governor Thomas] O'Malley's private life. He was also assigned to several state agencies, and compiled lists of veteran workers who could be removed and replaced with others loyal to the governor.

Lane wrote the governor that she would release more damaging messages between her and Steffen - the first few were the "tip of the iceberg," she said - if the governor and his staff did not stop trying to implicate her in how the Steffen story wound up in The Washington Post and later in other news outlets. She said she was the subject of a "whisper campaign."

Appearing at his first news conference in weeks yesterday, Ehrlich was asked about the Lane e-mail, and he said he wanted to know whether it was part of an orchestrated effort by his opponents. "We will be very helpful. We really want to know," Ehrlich said. "The people have a right to know, and we want to know as much as you want to know about political orchestration in this entire process by anybody connected with the Democratic Party or Democratic candidates."

The state Democratic Party and high-ranking officials have denied being involved with outing Steffen. They said the governor's comments seemed designed to divert attention from Steffen's activities. House Speaker Michael E. Busch said Ehrlich's effort to switch attention from Steffen to the source of the reports of his activities looks desperate. "It's like getting caught speeding and telling the officer, 'The three guys in front of me were going faster. Why didn't you catch them?'" Busch said.

In the aftermath of the Steffen revelations, Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller have agreed to legislative hearings on whether Steffen and other Ehrlich staffers have combed deeply into state agencies, firing or forcing the resignation of competent workers considered insufficiently loyal to the governor. Ehrlich said yesterday that he welcomed the probe, and predicted it would show many relatives and friends of Democratic lawmakers on the state payroll. "Bring it on," he said.

Del. Adrienne A.W. Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat named by Busch to direct the House portion of the inquiry, confirmed yesterday she met with Lane to discuss hiring and firing. Last month, Lane sent the governor a message that Steffen sent her, which appears to validate Steffen's role in hiring and firing. In a discussion about trying to find a job for someone identified only as "B," Steffen described how Ehrlich aide Craig Chesek was starting as chief of staff at the Public Service Commission "and once [Kenneth] Schisler is confirmed as PSC Director, they can start cleaning house. ... I won't be going to Annapolis today as I cannot be directly linked - plausible deniability."

[...]

The attached e-mails between Steffen and Lane were not part of the disclosure of 14,500 documents two weeks ago in response to several media groups' public-records requests for Steffen material, presumably because they were transmitted between two private e-mail accounts. Ehrlich has called Steffen a low-level staffer who was all but irrelevant to the administration, but previously released e-mails showed he was in communication with first lady Kendel Ehrlich and other top officials.

The governor said yesterday that Lane was a volunteer in his congressional office, and she was also part of the governor's transition team and held jobs in two agencies, the Department of Human Resources and the Governor's Office for Children, Youth and Families. But Ehrlich said yesterday that he did not know her personally [although] she was fired from a high-level job in the children's office in 2004. [Lobbyist and former Democratic delegate Gil] Genn wrote to the governor, saying Lane was terminated because she was critical of the appointment of Floyd Blair, the Ehrlich pick for Baltimore social services director who the O'Malley administration contended was unqualified for the post.

"There is an internal paper trail that is wide, incredibly damaging and a specific indictment of incompetence and cover-up at the highest levels," Genn wrote. Lane could not be reached for comment yesterday. Her attorney, Daniel M. Clements, who has represented several former state workers who claimed they were illegally fired because of political affiliation, denied that Lane was engaging in blackmail. "In typical fashion of this administration, they were attempting to get Michelle fired from her present employment [as a Towson University nurse]," Clements said. "She learned of it, learned the governor was behind it, and sent him an e-mail saying cut it out."

Clements said Lane was not MD4BUSH, the still-anonymous FreeRepublic.com member who some believe entrapped Steffen, writing as NCPAC, into a conversation about the O'Malley rumors. In exchanges between NCPAC and MD4BUSH, Steffen said there was a coordinated effort to give the rumors "float."

Ehrlich wants to determine if rivals exposed former aide, Governor says ex-worker sent him blackmail e-mail by David Nitkin and Andrew A. Green, Baltimore Sun Staff, March 25, 2005 [complete article]

The Ehrlich administration released e-mails and a photograph yesterday that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and his aides said support the notion that there was an orchestrated campaign to make the governor look bad by leaking information about Joseph Steffen, a former gubernatorial aide. "We really want to know about any political orchestration" by the Democratic Party or Democratic officials, Mr. Ehrlich said.

But Democrats said the documents support the allegations, denied by Mr. Ehrlich, that Mr. Steffen was a close aide of the governor who was sent into state agencies to fire workers not considered loyal to the administration. "We want to publicly thank Governor Ehrlich for further exposing the misdeeds in his administration," Josh White, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said.

Items released in response to federal Public Information Act requests by news organizations included a photograph of Mr. Ehrlich and Mr. Steffen with Michelle Lane, who was fired from her state job last summer, e-mails exchanged by Ms. Lane and Mr. Steffen and an e-mail from Ms. Lane to the governor and his top aides in February.

[...]

Mr. Steffen, a longtime aide to Ehrlich in Congress and at the state level, was fired by the governor last month after acknowledging he had used a conservative Web site to spread rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, a potential opponent to Mr. Ehrlich in next year's gubernatorial race.

[...]

Mr. Ehrlich said he did not know Ms. Lane even though she worked on his congressional staff and was an employee after he became governor in the Department of Human Resources and the Governor's Office of Children, Families and Youth. Democratic leaders in the Senate and House of Delegates are considering holding hearings about the administration's hiring and firing practices. Mr. Ehrlich said again yesterday he not only would welcome such an inquiry but would like to co-host the hearings.

Ehrlich: Democrats plotting to make him look bad by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The Capital, Annapolis, Md. March 25, 2005. [complete article]

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. accused a former state employee yesterday of trying to "blackmail" him. The woman involved said she was trying to protect herself against a retaliatory "whisper campaign" by the administration that could cost her a job. And after a winter of partisanship and allegations of political dirty tricks, the tension ratcheted up another level when Ehrlich (R) stood in front of the State House and charged that there was a campaign at work to make his administration look bad.

[...]

Michelle Lane, a registered nurse who held mid-level posts on Ehrlich's transition team and in his administration before being fired last summer ... accused the governor's aides of trying to smear her, and she threatened to distribute damaging correspondence she received from Steffen if Ehrlich's staff did not leave her alone. She included one sample, in which Steffen describes efforts to "start cleaning house" at a state agency.

[...]

Lane's attorney, Daniel Clements, said, "It is grossly disturbing that the governor is trying to blame his problems, and his errors, on the person who has attempted to bring these matters to public light."

Clements's description of Lane as a whistle-blower is bolstered by memorandums and e-mails she wrote to top state officials while serving as an Ehrlich appointee in the Maryland Department of Human Resources and the Office of Children, Youth and Families. In one September 2003 memo to M. Teresa Garland, the special secretary for children, youth and families, Lane described how she uncovered violations of a court decree that required the state to limit the number of foster children assigned to each state social worker.

Lane wrote that she "discovered that there were children assigned to workers who were no longer employed by the state." She said this illegal practice explained why an internal audit found foster children going without a check from a social worker "for months at a time -- with the most severe case, a young girl, who had not been visited for seventeen months."

She sent a similar memo to Jervis S. Finney, the governor's chief counsel, under the heading, "Action Needed," and said "goals have not been met and three children have recently died, by homicide, within a four month time frame." She said that despite her protests, the Ehrlich administration refused to respond. On June 8, 2004, Lane was fired from her state job.

[...]

The governor said yesterday that he did not read the letter but passed it on to others in his administration. [Note, other sources report that Ehrlich said he had read the letter.] The exchanges Lane had with Steffen appear to be the fodder for the threat she made last month in the e-mail to the governor's top aides. . . . she wrote. "Every time I hear about Ehrlich people engaging in this whisper campaign about me, I will release information. These emails are merely the tip of the iceberg."

Ehrlich Alleges 'Blackmail' By Former State Employee, by Matthew Mosk, Washington Post Staff Writer, March 25, 2005; Page A01 [Complete article]

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., administration officials ... released documents from and about Michelle Lane, a former executive planning director at the Department of Human Resources, who was fired in June. The documents accuse the Ehrlich administration of mishandling the child welfare system and link efforts by Joseph F. Steffen and Craig Chesek to target state workers for termination.

[...]

Lane's message includes a copy of her exchange with the now-fired Steffen, in which he wrote of discussions with Chesek about firings and hirings. Chesek, a onetime Ehrlich congressional aide, was assigned to the Public Service Commission and has been linked to Steffen as someone sent to the agency to fire people. Steffen noted in one message to Lane that he would be staying away from Annapolis for a while in order to establish "plausible deniability" about his actions.

The other document released Thursday is a letter from Gil Genn, a former Montgomery County Democratic delegate, to the governor. The letter, dated July 13, complains about Lane's termination and includes three pages of problems within the child welfare system that Lane claims to have tried to alert the administration about, only to be ignored.

Genn said Thursday that he stands by his letter and has never engaged in any effort to undermine the administration. He said he met Lane at a Republican fund-raiser in Towson in early 2004, where she told him of her concerns about the child welfare system. In his letter, Genn charges that the Department of Human Resources was failing to provide adequate health care for foster children in Baltimore. The letter assails an arrangement between the Ehrlich administration and a health care contractor as improper, inadequate and apparently political.

"This does not meet the smell test," Genn wrote, adding later that Lane "was terminated because she knew too much about the systemic problems" in the department and spoke out to correct them.

Ehrlich said he read the letter because it came from a former legislator, but did not act on Genn's complaints. "I just passed it on."

[...]

Lane, who moved to a director's position at the Office of Children, Youth and Families before being fired in mid-2004, had worked in Ehrlich's congressional office as a health care policy fellow for several months before joining the governor's transition team. She is a registered nurse and teaches nursing at a public university.

"The governor doesn't understand the legal definition of blackmail," said Lane's attorney, Daniel M. Clements, to whom she directed questions on Thursday. "He's violated a lot of employees' legal rights without caring. She sent that e-mail because the administration was attempting to have her fired from her present position -- but it was not blackmail."
[...]

Ehrlich has vehemently denied having close ties to Steffen.

[...]

"Michelle has had zero involvement with anybody in the Democratic Party or any Democratic elected official for the purpose of having a concerted effort to disclose this information," Clements said. "But who cares why the public now knows that the administration has treated employees despicably? The governor's only defense is to say, 'Oh, she did it.' Well, she didn't fire anyone. ...

"The truth was, as she described it, the state was not acting appropriately to protect the children under their care," he said. "When she brought that to the attention to the administration, their response was, 'We don't want to hear the truth. You're fired.'"

The administration is trying to find excuses by talking of orchestration by Democrats, said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis. "Please, look, this is a question where somebody was caught in an act and they are trying to blame everybody else for their own shortcomings," he said. Instead, the memos reinforce concerns about Ehrlich systematically firing of state workers, Busch said.

"I think it gives more credence to the fact that there was an orchestrated move by Joe Steffen, directed by the governor's office, to infiltrate agencies to identify people who are not loyal for termination," he said. Busch charged several Ehrlich staffers, including Steffen, Chesek and ice dancer Greg Maddalone, with being self-described "trenchcoat guys" who forwarded names of people to fire to the governor's office. The idea that Ehrlich did not know Lane, a former intern in his congressional office and a member of his transition team, is laughable, he said.

Ehrlich aides allege smear campaign by Catherine Dolinski and Thomas Dennison, Gazette.net Mar. 25, 2005 [Complete Article]

ANNAPOLIS - Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said a former state employee tried to "blackmail" him by releasing e-mails that show a longtime Ehrlich aide was allegedly involved in arranging politically motivated firings.

The blackmail charge adds to the latest ongoing saga that has persisted since Ehrlich fired aide Joseph Steffen for spreading rumors on a conservative Web site saying that Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley was having an affair.

[...]

Gil Genn, a lobbyist and former Montgomery County delegate, wrote a letter to Ehrlich July 13, 2004, after Lane was fired informing the governor that Lane allegedly was fired because she "knew too much about the systemic problems [within foster care] and tried to correct them..."

Genn outlined in that letter a scenario which implicated Department of Human Resources Secretary Christopher McCabe in providing inadequate health care for foster children. Genn said Thursday he met Lane at a Republican fund-raiser the summer she was fired and became interested in her story.

"As a lawyer and a legislator, I've always tried to represent those without a voice, and I was hearing the cries of these kids through Michelle," Genn said as his justification for the letter.

Ehrlich said he did not initiate an investigation after reading the letter. "As governor, you don't get involved in this sort of lower-echeleon [sic] employment," Ehrlich said.

Gov. Ehrlich claims former employee tried to blackmail him by ANNA BAILEY, SF Examiner Staff Writer: March 24, 2005 [Complete Article]

ANNAPOLIS - The timing of the announcement from U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., that he would not seek re-election in 2006 was a huge favor to Gov. Robert Ehrlich, coming as it did on the day the Ehrlich Administration was forced to release thousands of e-mails and other documents pertaining to former Ehrlich aide Joseph Steffen.

Steffen, alleged to have targeted Democratic state employees for firing, referred to himself as "the Prince of Darkness" and was fired himself after confessing to spreading Internet rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. For a while last week, Sarbanes' announcement shifted the parlor game in Annapolis from speculation about how deeply Ehrlich might have been involved in the Steffen scandal....

'Prince of Darkness' haunts the governor by TAMELA BAKER, Hagerstown Herald-Mail Online, March 21, 2005. [Complete Article]