Prostitution scandal, surveillance, campaign ads all come up at David Vitter, John Bel Edwards’ firs

[TexasTowelie]

Prostitution scandal, surveillance, campaign ads all come up at David Vitter, John Bel Edwards’ first face-to-face exchange

The first face-to-face meeting between runoff opponents David Vitter and John Bel Edwards before the Baton Rouge Press Club lived up to its billing. The two tangled over character as much as policy, and the exchange got particularly heated when they were asked about the role of surveillance -- from public "tracking" to private investigating.

Vitter came closest to making news on this front, when he linked his suspicions about John Cummings, the wealthy trial lawyer and Edwards donor taped by a Vitter p.i. at a Metairie coffee shop, to Danny DeNoux, a private investigator who was also at the table along with Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand. DeNoux has admitted he found a source for a blogger who's been investigating Vitter's past, and at the forum Monday, Vitter said Denoux also was a target of the Vitter campaign's surveillance, which he deemed neither illegal nor improper.

"That person was researching what I believe is an illegal scheme" to "pay for false testimony for witnesses against me," Vitter said. He said he had already contacted federal authorities over the matter.

Vitter also suggested his investigator is no different from a standard campaign tracker, someone who follows candidates and records their conversation without attempting to hide. He also likened the man's actions to those of a news reporter. He said he's been a victim of tracking for years and finds it obnoxious; that prompted Edwards to point out a tracker hired by Vitter's Super PAC, someone who's been so ubiquitous on the campaign trail that he called him by his name, Joshua.

Read more: http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/13930778-123/stephanie-grace-quick-take-prostitution