IT'S WAR! EACHUS, DEMS VS. DEWEESE

A Captain Renault post: You can't make this stuff up. And if you did, no one would believe you. But to us it sure looks like we aren't aren't the only ones trying to figure out if DeWeese made some deal with Corbett to implicate other Democrats (including current Dem House members) in order to save his own hide. Eachus and DeWeese, the two top elected Democrat Leaders, are now going to war with each other over still unknown and untold parts of the Bonusgate fiasco.

The AP's Mark Scolforo ran with a story first published last night that reported the new Majority Leader Todd Eachus and the Democrat caucus has sued former caucus/DeWeese lawyer Bill Chadwick in order to force Chadwick to turn over all of the files he collected while on contract with the House Democrats over the last two years. According to the news reports, Chadwick earned $1.3 million during the course of his contract and was terminated by the new caucus leadership sometime in January.

Chadwick says he will not turn over all of the information he gathered on DeWeese and other Democrat House members and current caucus staff while he was on the public payroll to anyone unless forced by a court to do so. Chadwick has told reporters that DeWeese has asserted his attorney-client privilege with Chadwick and refuses to allow Chadwick to release the files that Eachus and the Democrat caucus believe they are entitled to. The position that Chadwick and DeWeese are now taking regarding the attorney-client privilege is in direct contrast to many past public statements that we recall both of them making to many reporters over the past months which indicated that Chadwick was a lawyer "for the caucus" and not for DeWeese personally. (We are looking for the articles and quotes and will post some later).

This latest episode of open warfare between Eachus and DeWeese would be funny if it wasn't so sad and didn't have so many serious implications for so many people. After all, Eachus and DeWeese just ran together on a leadership "slate" in November and helped each other get elected to their current leadership positions. And it's been obvious to so many observers from the beginning of this Bonusgate investigation that DeWeese was doing everything he could to throw anyone and everyone under the bus to save himself -- and that would include any of his colleagues. So DeWeese's colleagues are just now figuring that out?

There are so many interesting questions surrounding this intra-party war: What is DeWeese hiding? What is Eachus concerned about finding in "the Chadwick files"? Who else does DeWeese and his lawyer have a file on? How are Democrats going to govern in the majority with their top two leaders suing each other over serious Bonusgate issues?

There are many more questions and we will try to post on some of them -- and some of our own answers and suppositions -- in the hours ahead.

I mean, really, you can't make this stuff up!