Sawyer keeps ad on Jenkins

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Feb 29, 2008 - Page: 1B

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GOP congressional candidate Paul Sawyer on Thursday said he would ignore the state Republican Party’s demand to pull a controversial advertisement from the airwaves.

Sawyer said he is sticking by his claim that a fellow Republican candidate for the 6th U.S. Congressional District gave money to a former Ku Klux Klan leader.

“I am merely stating the facts,” Sawyer said.

But Republican candidate Woody Jenkins, the target of the ads, said Sawyer doesn’t have his facts straight.

Jenkins said he was fined $3,000 for not properly disclosing a 1996 purchase of an automated call machine, linked to former Klan leader David Duke.

Sawyer argues in radio and television commercials that Jenkins improperly tried to hide the money he paid to Duke.

Sawyer and Jenkins, both of Baton Rouge, and two other Republican candidates are about a week away from the party’s March 8 primary election for the congressional seat vacated by former U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, in February.

Sawyer, Baker’s former chief of staff, released his ads Wednesday. Jenkins aired rebuttal ads Thursday.

Jenkins, a former state representative, said he used the machine, operated by a company called Impact Mail Ltd., during his 1996 U.S. Senate race.

When he found out that Duke once owned the machines, Jenkins said he tried to stop payment to the company. But Jenkins’ campaign manager had already signed an $82,500 contract, he said.

In 1999, when a federal grand jury started investigating Duke’s finances, it came to light that Duke had received money from Impact Mail and that that company was linked to Jenkins.

Sawyer contends that Jenkins knew of the Duke tie all along and tried to cover up the deal by paying Impact Mail through Courtney Communications, Jenkins’ media firm at the time.

According to an agreement between Jenkins and the Federal Elections Commission, Courtney Communications had no involvement with the services provided by Impact Mail.