Clown's Credibility at Crossroads - Lie in Campaign Email Threatens Sheriff's Endorsement

As City Attorney Carmen "the Clown" Trutanich continues to seek support for his bid to become Dictator Attorney, sorry District Attorney, it appears that he has taken bragging and exaggerating to new depths.

The Los Angeles Dragnet has accused Trutanich's bogus campaign of lying - no subtly there, and perhaps rightly so. The lie concerns a claim that Trutanich "Trutanich busted the notorious 38th Street Gang— confiscating an arsenal of 80 firearms and removing 57 long time gang members from the streets," when his Office's role in filing an after the fact gang injunction and condemning gang houses as nuisances was so peripheral to the take-down as not to warrant mention in the LA Times. As for "confiscating"  weapons and making "arrests" those were palpably not the actions of Trutanich or his office, as this take-down was a federal indictment - and Trutanich has no jurisdiction in that area.

Per the Dragnet:

TRUTANICH'S BOGUS CAMPAIGN LIES ABOUT 38TH ST GANG BUST

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's bogus campaign sent out an email blast purporting to come from Sheriff Lee Baca, but actually sent from the campaign's Gmail account.

The "Urgent Message from Sheriff Baca" implores the reader to sign a petition that will no doubt be used by Trutanich to try to weasel his way out of his sworn promise not to do what he is currently doing; using the City Attorney's Office as a springboard to higher office.

No campaign donations are being sought, raising questions about how much money is being spent on this bogus campaign, and by whom. Doubtless all genuine candidates will be examining Trutanich's campaign statement carefully once it becomes available at the end of the month.

Beyond the questionable financing of this bogus campaign is the content of the email itself. Although attributed to Sheriff Baca, some may question whether the Sheriff actually wrote it, or even read it, because it appears to contain a lie. "Trutanich busted the notorious 38th Street Gang— confiscating an arsenal of 80 firearms and removing 57 long time gang members from the streets."


Trutanich's involvement with the arrest of 57 notorious 38th Street Gangmembers was so peripheral that it did not even rate a mention in the Los Angeles Times article about the take-down, published on February 1, 2011.

According to the Times "During the pre-dawn raids Tuesday, LAPD officers and special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 defendants on federal indictments; 20 more people were taken into custody on state weapons and narcotics charges. Federal prosecutors already had 14 defendants named in the federal cases in custody. Seven fugitives remained at large."

No mention of Trutanich or the City Attorney's Office, and that's because, despite Trutanich's odd relationship with the truth, the fact remains that he does not have the power to arrest or "bust" gang members charged with felonies, federal felonies in this case.

The blatant falsity of this statement is surprising even by Trutanich's low standards for self-aggrandizing and shameless self-promotion. But to attribute a lie to Sheriff Baca, must now put into serious doubt whether Baca will continue to endorse Trutanich, or throw him under the bus like Steve Cooley did.

The sheer audacity of Trutanich's lie eclipses the rather humorous, but equally ridiculous story doing the rounds of the blogs, that Trutanich has to delay his decision on running for District Attorney because his son has been injured in Iraq. The, reality, according to Street-Hassle's Mulholland Terrace, is that Trutanich's son, an Assistant US Attorney, was injured during a soccer match while working for the Dept. of Justice in Iraq. Credit to the original report from Zuma Dogg at L.A. City News.com.


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More Controversy Over Trutanich Campaign - Deception, Deceit and Duplicity Alleged

On April 14, 2011, a select group of individuals received an email plea from Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, urging recipients to persuade Carmen Trutanich to run for District Attorney. We previously pointed out the obvious flaws with Truanich's "crass and facile attempt"  to get himself off the hook from his campaign promise not to run for DA.

The Los Angeles Dragnet has exclusive news about Trutanich and has revealed the true extent of what the Los Angeles Dragnet calls "Deception Deceit and Duplicity" by Trutanich.

The Dragnet's claims center on allegations that Trutanich orchestrated the creation of the DraftTrutanich4DA.com website, and as proof the Dragnet offers two pieces of evidence.

Records obtained by Dragnet shows that the phony website was set up three months before Sheriff Baca was fooled into signing off on what he thought was a genuine attempt by well-meaning law enforcement personnel to encourage Trutanich to run for District Attorney. Dragnet claims that the person who set up the website, Jim Royer, is a "close associate" of Trutanich.

Dragnet also displays photographs from Trutanich's secret Flickr file-sharing account that were used on the phony website. Proof, the Dragnet says, that Trutanich was behind the entire deception from the get go.

Read the full exclusive news about Trutanich and his website at the Los Angeles Dragnet.

Trutanich Launches Campaign For DA

City Attorney Carmen 'the Clown' Trutanich has launched his campaign to become District Attorney, code named 'TRU in 12.'

The campaign is dressed up as a plea from Sheriff Lee Baca to sign a petition at the DraftTrutanich4DA.com website to try to 'persuade' the Clown to run for DA. This gets a major Political BS Threat Alert on our warning system.

Political Pantloads received the email plea from Sheriff Lee Baca
at 6PM today, as part of an email blast.

The use of Sheriff Baca to pretend to be making a plea to try to persuade Trutanich to go back on his sworn promise to serve a full first term as City Attorney, is a crass and facile attempt to get Trutanich off the hook from that promise.

Expect Trutanich feign shock and surprise and say something banal like "Aw shucks, well I guess I just have no choice but to run for DA if THE SHERIFF tell me to, ha ha ha." followed by "I am humbled an honored blah blah blah."

Frankly, we would have expected Trutanich's campaign strategist John Shallman, to come up with something better, but he can only work with the material he's got and has to counter the hailstorm of criticism and accusations of being a liar and a career politician that the opponents will use relentlessly.

Trutanich's announcement is no surprise, the Clown more or less leaked it last week at a luncheon for the Studio City Chamber of Commerce when he said he was looking for a storefront on Ventura Blvd. for his DA campaign HQ - likely to be the same Mort Allen owned pole-dancing studio that the Clown used for his TRU '09 City Attorney Campaign.

So what will the TRU in 12 campaign look like? Here's our suggestion:

Our prediction of the likely themes in the 'TRU in 12' campaign; strong law and order
mixed with self-deprecating humor over his major missteps. 

As well as having Sheriff Baca endorsing him, Trutanich is rumored to have secured the endorsement of  Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Krekorian, who has made no secret of his interest in taking out Trutanich. In fact, expect to see the entire City Council endorsing Trutanich - they are so keen to get him out of City Hall.

One endorsement that Trutanich is unlikely to get will be that of Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, who may just be persuaded to abandon his retirement plans to prevent Trutanich from wreaking havoc at the DA's Office.

One thing's for sure, it's going to be interesting.