WASHINGTON – The former chief of staff to Minnesota Congressman Jim Hagedorn released a smoking-gun of sorts. In a tape of a phone conversation August 7, Hagedorn told his chief of staff, “I don’t believe there’s any problem” with taxpayer-funded mailings to constituents. The mailings later turned into an ethics scandal, and Hagedorn blamed Peter Su, the chief staff, and fired him. Su now has given the August 7 recording to a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter — six weeks after Su was fired. Asked about the tape, Hagedorn didn’t challenge its authenticity, the Star Tribune reported.
More verbatim
Hagedorn to Su in recorded conversation:
“It was presented as if, that John shouldn’t have done the work, that your brother shouldn’t have been hired, because that was unethical. Which it’s not.”
“If your brother was doing the work, and he and I did not have a personal relationship and all that stuff going in, I don’t believe there’s any problem there either.”