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Orange County’s Public Administrator and Guardian John Williams was found to have lied to not only an Orange County Register reporter, but also to the California State Attorney General(AG) in an apparent effort to smear then Assistant District Attorney Todd Spitzer and set him up to be fired.


Williams claimed to have a “transcript of the telephone conversation between Assistant District Attorney (Todd Spitzer) and a Supervising Deputy Public Administrator.”  The only problem was that it was a prevarication.  A canard.  A lie.  And if he’s lying about this, what else is he hiding?

In an effort to extricate himself from the web of lies he spun, Williams (or perhaps the County of Orange?) hired veteran political lawyer Phil Greer to try to help Williams weasel-word his way out of his lies (Exactly who is paying Greer?).

Can anyone think of a time when a department head hired his own private attorney to defend himself?  The only two that come to mind are OC Treasurer Chriss Street, who was stripped of his powers by the Board of Supervisors and disgraced Sheriff Mike Carona, whose political godfather was Michael Schroeder, the power behind the throne today at the District Attorney’s office.

Since Greer, who also defended Street (“incompetently” according to Street), is filtering all media and public records request, Williams is using the cover of attorney-client privilege to keep the shroud of secrecy drawn around the Public Administrator / Public Guardian (PA/PG) office.

What do the Board of Supervisors think of Williams’ lying to reporters and the AG?  What do they think of John Williams and Tony Rackauckas circling the wagons to keep the public out?

Just like in the old Sheriff Carona days, truth is the first casualty when politics are involved.  District Attorney Tony Rackaukas’ girlfriend Peggi Buff is the second-in-command under John Williams.  Michael Schroeder’s wife is T-Rack’s new second in command.  Carona may have fallen, but the Schroeder-Rackauckas apparatchik remains in place.  This nepotistic power structure within the DA and the PA/PG offices is more appropriate for La Cosa Nostra, not for the County’s halls of administration.