Aide to Mayor McFelonyHands Invoking Attorney-Client Privilege to Withhold Notes, Allegedly About Harrassment

What happens in San Diego, stays in San Diego.

Or DC, for that matter. Filner’s got victims on both coasts.

Allegedly.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s chief of staff — who is a lawyer — is seeking City Council intervention in a dispute with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith as to whether she can function as a legal adviser on city business.

…

Deputy City Attorney Walter Chung wrote to Burdick on July 25, demanding she hand over some handwritten notes related to alleged misconduct or sexual harassment by Filner. Burdick is apparently resisting handing over the notes, which were requested by an unnamed party under the California Public Records Act.

Burdick is citing attorney-client privilege.

It gets worse.  Filner’s lawyer claimed, uproariously, that the city should bear the costs of Filner’s legal defens and lawsuits because they had failed to give him the appropriate sexual harassment training.  Left out of this argument was any indication about who, exactly, might have been in a superior position, in the city government hierarchy, to order the mayor to do some remedial Bad Touch homework.

But it turns out the city does offer online sexual harassment guidelines to new employees — Filner just didn’t bother.

It probably would have been pointless for him to take the classes; he couldn’t have heard the instructor over his giggling. But even so:

“Why didn’t he do it?” Goldsmith said. “It’s irrelevant to the lawsuit. Nice try, Harvey, but it really is irrelevant. If he committed sexual harassment with a city employee, we’re going to be liable for his acts. That’s why we sued him in a cross-complaint. Because he chose not to take his training doesn’t mean somehow the city gets to pay his attorneys fees. It’s ridiculous.”

Now, with eight credible accusers against him, you’d think poor Mayor Friskyfingers wouldn’t have a friend in the world left.

You’d be wrong. Two days ago, with seven victims coming forward to accuse Filner of gross sexual inappropriateness (and I do mean gross), the Democrats’ Best Pal Politico helpfully, solicitously even, tweeted this:

thanks to a pair of Merry Andrews, @awsiegel and @covenant_ins