GOP panel switches campaign ad

The write-in candidate's campaign said the ad was factually inaccurate.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
The National Republican Congressional Committee started airing a different ad critical of Sen. Charlie Wilson after the candidate raised questions about the first ad's accuracy.
Wilson's campaign said the NRCC was forced to pull the ad.
Ed Patru, NRCC spokesman, offered a different explanation.
"It was a voluntary decision to change the advertisement," he said.
No television stations pulled the ad or asked that it be pulled, Patru said.
The NRCC ad in question began airing this week, targeting the tenure of Wilson, of St. Clairsville, a Democrat and a write-in candidate for Ohio's Sixth Congressional district, on the Eastern Ohio Regional Wastewater Authority.
While Wilson was a member of the board, the authority dumped raw sewage into the Ohio River. The ad that began airing this week said the incident led to an FBI investigation.
'Factual errors'
The Wilson campaign said the ad contained "factual errors" and produced a letter, dated Thursday, from Michael E. Brocks, the FBI's chief division counsel of its Cincinnati office, stating a review "failed to disclose any record of an FBI investigation concerning" the EORWA.
"When are we ever going to get an honest answer from a Republican in Washington, Ohio or the Sixth Congressional District?" said Jason Burke, Wilson's campaign manager.
Patru said the new ad is essentially the same as what had aired, minus the reference to an FBI investigation. He said the NRCC plans to collect additional evidence to support its claims and expects the ad to return to the air.
Regarding the letter from the chief division counsel of the FBI's Cincinnati office, Patru said it's "possible and even likely" that the matter was investigated by another FBI field office. He pointed to an article that appeared in the Times Leader, an eastern Ohio newspaper, in August 1998, where the board's president is quoted as saying that FBI agents had reviewed plant logs.
In January 1997, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the attorney general's office reached an agreement with the authority requiring it to pay $539,984 to a sewer improvement fund to upgrade the system, according to a Dayton Daily News story published at the time. The newspaper also wrote that the agency had to pay a $231,421 civil penalty to the EPA for past violations.