State fines former aide to Aaron Reardon for political work

OLYMPIA — Defiant and unrepentant, Kevin Hulten learned Thursday the penalty for conducting political campaign activities on the public dime.

Hulten was fined $2,500 for improperly using public resources to help his then-boss, Aaron Reardon, win re-election as Snohomish County executive in 2011.

The state Public Disclosure Commission voted unanimously to impose the penalty after a nearly five-hour hearing, much of it taken up by Hulten’s defense of his behaviors.

Hulten acknowledged that he’d made the phone calls and written the documents that had prompted state election watchdogs to seek the sanctions. He insisted, however, that his conduct was entirely lawful and the commission’s hearing was unfair.

“It’s sickening. It’s sickening,” he said before the commission left the room to deliberate. Hulten, who now lives in California, participated by phone.

Commissioners returned less than half an hour later to approve, without discussion, a motion made by Commissioner John Bridges.

“The commission was not without some sympathy for Mr. Hulten in respect to the penalty,” he said afterward.

Commissioners will issue a written order with findings of fact in the next few days to provide further insight, he and Commissioner Anne Levinson said.

The decision comes two months after commissioners imposed a $4,200 penalty against Reardon for multiple violations of election laws in the campaign in which he defeated Republican Mike Hope to win a third term.

Reardon received the maximum penalty for conducting campaign-related business in the executive’s office and on his county-issued cell phone. Reardon paid the fine June 10.

Chad Standifer, the assistant attorney general who argued the case on behalf of commission staff, sought the same maximum penalty for Hulten.

The decision didn’t disappoint Evelyn Fielding Lopez, the commission’s executive director.

“Not really, because when you listen — as we had ample opportunity to do for five hours — you do feel sorry for him,” she said.

Deciding the complaints against Hulten and Reardon clears two of the longest unresolved cases on the commission docket.

“It’s a fine outcome,” she said. “It’s nice to put this to sleep.”

Hulten was hired in January 2011 to work as an executive analyst to Reardon. On paper, his primary responsibilities included working on constituent concerns and monitoring state legislation. In practice, he spent substantial time working on Reardon’s political fortunes, including digging for dirt on Hope, and creating Reardon’s campaign website.

He ultimately played a key role in the demise of Reardon’s political career.

Throughout Thursday’s hearing, Hulten insisted, with passion and combativeness, that the context of the story line was all wrong.

He never was a cog in Reardon’s campaign, he said. As for digging into the backgrounds of other county officers, he said he was the true target and acted in self-preservation.

“The genesis of all of this I was trying to do the right thing about election impropriety and abuse of power,” he said.

PDC investigators in December completed their three-year probe, an effort that entailed poring through emails and phone logs, obtaining results of a forensic audit of county computers that Hulten had used and interviewing a slew of individuals.

They filed civil charges against Hulten for actions related to Reardon’s re-election and offenses tied to the campaign of a Democratic candidate for state Senate in Pierce County in 2012.

One reason the investigation dragged on was commission staff being repeatedly thwarted in attempts to interview Hulten.

Hulten in April 2014 did submit 38 pages of statements and exhibits, in which he urged the election watchdogs to dismiss the case.

At Thursday’s hearing, Kurt Young, the lead PDC investigator, testified on the multiple attempts to talk with Hulten about what investigators were finding.

Hulten took offense.

“Did I ever refuse to be interviewed?” he asked Young. Hulten noted that any interview would have been voluntary. So if he opted not to talk, how could that be uncooperative?

“You blew off (the) subpoenas. You didn’t respond to emails,” Young said.

Reardon announced his resignation in 2013, days after a series of stories in The Herald detailed Hulten’s covert campaign of on-the-job harassment and other mischief, much of it conducted using the pseudonym, “Edmond Thomas.”

Hulten quit his county job after homemade sexually explicit videos and photos were found on one of the county computers he’d been using. The materials were found while he was being investigated to determine whether his “Edmond Thomas” antics had broken any laws.

Hulten initially denied having anything to do with the records requests and other behaviors, but later claimed he had engaged in those activities as protected whistle blowing.

He repeatedly returned to that theme Thursday, apparently unconcerned that PDC commissioners had been provided a memo he wrote to Reardon, complaining about not being properly rewarded for engaging in successful political “black hat jobs.”

Hulten was earlier convicted of tampering with evidence after admitting he wiped data from a county laptop he’d used to target Reardon’s political foes. He paid a fine and spent five days on a Skagit County work crew.

Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623; jcornfield@heraldnet.com.