The rape of Trish Todd, frankly the entire William “Bill” Brough saga and all of its’ tenticles are a great case study for why the OCGOP is now in second place in Orange County. It is intellectually lazy to blame slippage from 66% of the vote in 2004 for HW Bush to 45% for Trump in 2020 on Demographics only. It is also easy and intellectually lazy to look at regaining a couple seats in congress (while the people in charge let Bryan Maryott, Greg Raths and Diane Dixon swing) as anything other than an aberration. The deterioration of the OCGOP has been consistent. Congressman Tom Campbell lit up the entire narrative being pushed by the feckless GOP establishment.
The first photo is Brough with his portable bar and Whitaker is in the second photo, memed forever.
I was first immersed in the protect all incumbents regardless of merit culture of the OCGOP in 2016. I was and have been aghast at the fealty towards incumbents that is the order of the day. John Moorlach had defeated Don Wagner for State Senate. Wagner had near unanimous support for his run in 2015 and the very same people the following year all lined up behind Moorlach because he was the incumbent – while making the same complaints about Moorlach being arrogant, acerbic, useless to the party and the like. In fact, Wagner had enough money to primary challenge Moorlach. I learned a couple of years later from a former employee of Don Wagner that a couple stakeholders literally threatened to spend millions destroying him personally and politically – all for John Moorlach not because they liked Moorlach, but how dare Wagner challenge the status quo.
Don Wagner for his part is now an Orange County Supervisor. I wonder if the same people that supported Wagner for Senate in 2015, threatened to wreck him in 2016 went off and supported him in 2020? These same luminaries are lining up the deck chairs to coronate Diane Harkey supervisor in 2022 despite Harkey having a lexis nexis report in excess of 300 pages. (speaking of documentation)
That culture is the backdrop for why it took me hundreds of hours of research and blogging relentlessly to crack the nearly psychotic grip of fealty to incumbents in Orange County.
None of them seem to give a rip about the victims at all. But at least the recent media scrutiny has forced a lot of these arrogant fools back in to their spider holes as they would all rather die than accept the humiliation of admitting a mistake. Mistakes that may elect the crazed Katrina Foley supervisor.
In April of 2019, I was called by someone that was inside the closed session of the Orange County Republican Party when now supervisor Lisa Bartlett finally came public with her 2011 story of abuse at the hands of Bill Brough. Fred Whitaker tried to cover it up, asking everyone there to “Keep it in the family”.
Along came Right on Daily.
After Bill Brough outed two of the victims, they asked to meet with Fred Whitaker in an attempt to explain their side of the story – while Whitaker was trying to hide and while the feckless Assembly GOP Minority Leader Marie Waldron was trying to protect Bill Brough. (so much for women in leadership)
It took three months and when Whitaker finally met with them, he understood finally these women were for real. So is Lisa Bartlett, Maria Elena Banks and an anonymous capitol staffer who spoke to the LA Times.
Then along came Trish Todd who told me her story long before John Moorlach lost his seat in the State Senate. (A seat that Don Wagner would have held easily)
Well guess what happened? The OCGOP closed ranks around one of their good ole’ boys once again. This time, they went a step further pre-emptively smearing Trish Todd who came forward with actionable and verifable evidence she was raped by Bill Brough. In one of the amazing things that happens in the small world of politics, their multi-million dollar hero from the 1990’s happened to be her employer when she was raped and his then Cheif of Staff is still his campaign manager. Whoops.
Now protecting incumbents and members of the club has crossed from cowardly threats behind closed doors to wreck Don Wagner, to interfering with efforts to hold Bill Brough accountable, to straight out smearing a rape victim to cover up the moral failure of John Moorlach. The lynchpin of this is Tim Clark, who worked for Bill Brough in 2014, Covered up the Rape in 2015 and is now still close to Moorlach’s current campaign (reputedly he is running it despite being a “volunteer”). Clark is alleged to be the source of the smears against Trish Todd and Moorlach’s behavior as more facts have been known illustrate that he was a terrible employer and even today his double speak on the issue itself indicates he does not care.
Great pick OCGOP.
I have Trish Todd’s entire personnel file. I can draw the conclusion that the Orange County Register did not follow up on their story about the smears because the Personnel file shows that John Moorlach lied to the Orange County Register. They would be forced to admit they made a mistake by endorsing Moorlach. Editorial Boards are no different than stakeholders in that regard.
While Todd has been friends with my wife (again the super tiny world of politics) since 2013, I did not know that she had such a long career in the Sacramento Capitol – THAT SHE LOST AFTER GETTING RAPED. Her experience included Senator Abel Maldonado who promoted her, the late Dave Cox, and several years working for the Caucus itself. I’ve spoken to people I know that are still there in Sacramento and they all have nothing but positive things to say. Todd’s personnel file was putting me to sleep it was so boring. This is hardly the stuff of a disgruntled employee. She worked in the capitol from 2003 to 2016.
Trish also sent me this email she sent the Orange County Register as a follow up to the first story about the “disgruntled employee smear”:
I gave John Moorlach every opportunity to correct the smears and lies he told about a rape victim that worked loyally and hard for him. I also had hoped he would reach out and offer some sympathy and help now that he knows what happened to me while I worked for him. But, sadly nothing. In my letter, I told John Moorlach he had until last Thursday to tell the world the supposed negative things he claimed he and his staff had put in my personnel file. He told the Orange County Register Editorial Board he was not supportive of hiring me and he had to deal with poor performance by me and these were documented in my personnel file.“
“He knew what I knew. That was a complete lie. He also could not do anything to correct the record because despite my giving him a complete release to disclose my personnel file, there was not anything in there he claimed was in there. So, I am now releasing it to the public.”
“So, what is in the file? For openers there is a letter signed by John Moorlach when I was hired, praising me lavishly for my advanced skills and stating I was going to be his “defacto Deputy Chief of Staff” and urging the Senate to give me a higher salary than I was otherwise entitled to receive. John Moorlach’s handwritten notes on my resume are attached. Yet he told the Orange County Register Editorial Board that he opposed my hiring? Really?”
“He also lied to the Editorial Board and claimed there were adverse performance reviews from him or Tim Clark. Again, a complete lie. There is not a single negative performance review of any kind in my file.”
“Finally, John Moorlach, as is the case with many career politicians, uses tax payer money for ridiculous boondoggles. In this case, the Outdoor Sporting Caucus, now just a name on the senate website, of which John Moorlach was then a member, had me arrange a skeet shooting event for Senate and Assembly Members and their staff. It was a ticketed event due to the limited number of shooting bays. Tim Clark, who was no longer on John Moorlach’s staff, and other staff who did not have reservations to the event were still disgruntled they could not attend. However, on the day of the event no elected Assembly Members or Senators were turned away from this event.”
“I eventually learned the hard way that John Moorlach will not promote or give raises to female staff nor will he protect them when they are in harm’s way.”
Please note – I have a copy of the resume’ with Moorlach’s handwriting on it. See it below. Please also note there is not one negative review of her ANYWHERE in the 13 year long file. Not. One. Tim Clark Lied, John Moorlach Lied. Perhaps this is why Moorlach was counseled to shut up.
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I checked the transparent California website. It appears that John Moorlach had few female employees and based on what I saw none of them had anything other than a cost-of-living pay adjustment while working for him. (Not to mention a boss that covered up sexual assaults, but I digress)
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I read a two-page document related to the skeet shooting event referenced above. It is very typical of what the Senate Rules Committee used to do Pre Me-Too with any sort of complaints by staff (or against staff). It was clear that someone (identified by Trish as Tim Clark) attempted to smear her. Not coincidentally, Trish separated from service shortly after that event.
Did I metntion that Tim Clark is a morally corrupt man? She got raped, it was covered up and the last thing in her file was an attempt to smear her by Tim Clark. Just wow. Did I mention that Clark is still affiliated with John Moorlach’s current campaign and helped him lose his State Senate race?
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Tim Clark lied to the Orange County Republican Party – alternating between calling Trish a liar and telling others that she was not credible. Other communication I have received indicated that
my 11-21-2020 blog detailing the rape with more specific information than the 6-1-2020 post was a “Smear” and a “Political Attack”. Anyone that attacked the victim is going to get their ass kicked by the Right On Daily Blog, resign now or it is coming.
Trish got raped. Heather Baez was sexually Battered, Lisa Bartlett has nightmares, Jennifer Alizeri was harassed, an unnamed Dem Staffer was cornered, a realtor from South OC was propositioned and touched – AND MANY OCGOP LEADERS IGNORED SOME OR ALL OF THE ISSUES! How many more women did Bill Brough abuse because these people did nothing?
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I’m reaching out to you to ask a personal favor, because we are at a critical point. The absolutely false accusation against Sen. Moorlach is threatening the ability of the party to unite behind one candidate for this special election,…
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SNIP
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… I personally, think the blog was sent out just to sow disarray in the party by those that want to see us divided, since they know we can’t unite behind one of the others. I know you know how it feels to be wrongly accused and have libel sent out against you. Please help John fight this. Would you please “reply” that we can count your email as support for Sen Moorlach’s endorsement? I appreciate the consideration.
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Fred Whitaker, resign now. If Katrina Foley gets elected supervisor, you own it.
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Good Bye John Moorlach. Your political career is over. You can’t win.
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Tim Clark, I am younger than you and I am patient. Wherever you pop up in politics, I will be there.
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TRISH TODD GOT RAPED AND THEY DON’T CARE. But I do, and I won’t stop.
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About that resume’: (Note Moorlach’s notes on the resume’) – I redacted her phone and email off of the document.
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