Birmingham Blues

Good grief!  This is just weird.  Jay Garrity, a long-time Romney aide who now serves as Director of Operations for Mitt’s presidential campaign, has taken leave after being accused – twice — of impersonating a law enforcement official.  Last week, New York Times reporter Mark Leibovitch mentioned parenthetically in a story about the Romney campaign that he had been pulled over and warned off while following the Romney entourage:

(Between stops in New Hampshire, this reporter found himself trailing the former governor’s S.U.V. on a back road, only to be led to the shoulder and instructed to “veer off” by a man wearing an earpiece who emerged from Mr. Romney’s car. “We ran your license plate,” he told the reporter, and explained that no one was permitted to follow Mr. Romney’s vehicle.)

The Romney campaign later confirmed that the earpiece-wearing man was Garrity.  Turns out it’s against the law in New Hampshire for a private citizen to access the state’s plate database or pull over other drivers, so the state’s Attorney General is investigating.

Now Garrity also faces investigation in Massachusetts on suspicion of impersonating a state trooper.  This one’s just plain wacky.  The New York Times reports:

Jay Garrity, who serves as director of operations and is constantly at the side of the former Massachusetts governor, is accused of leaving a lengthy message with the answering service of a plumbing company on Mother’s Day, identifying himself as ”Trooper Garrity” of the Massachusetts State Police and complaining about erratic driving by a company driver.

The district attorney in Boston is investigating the call, which was tape recorded by an after-hours operator. Impersonating an officer is a misdemeanor charge carrying a fine of up to $400 and one year imprisonment.

”Listening to the message, it sounded like he was calling control and speaking back and forth to people,” said Dot Barme, whose Burlington company, Wayne’s Drains, received the call. ”I had my husband listen to it and he said, ‘He’s not talking to anybody; he’s talking back and forth to himself,” Barme told The Associated Press.

The Boston Globe says:

In the phone call to the Wilmington company, which was recorded by an answering service and obtained by the Globe, a man who identifies himself as “Trooper Garrity with the Massachusetts State Police” complains about the driving of a van owned by Wayne’s Drains Middlesex Sewers of Wilmington. The caller repeatedly says he is a trooper and questions when the driver will return to the office.

“I’m going to get the address of your company,” the caller says during the May 13 call. “I’m going to come down to your company. I’m going to personally issue this driver a citation for both speeding, driving erratic, cutting across.”

Garrity is denying these charges.  I might be more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt if not for this little tidbit:

In 2004, Garrity, who was then Romney’s $75,000-a-year security boss, was cited by Boston police for driving a car illegally equipped with blue-and-red flashing lights, a siren, multiple police radios and tinted windows. Garrity also reportedly had a police baton and a state police patch that said “official business.” Cops made the discovery while towing the illegally parked car from the North End.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Stupid Conservative Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.