posted October 21, 2006 02:11 AM            

State investigators on Friday searched an office of a Republican congressional candidate whose campaign mailed thousands of intimidating letters to Hispanic immigrant voters.

About 10 uniformed California Department of Justice agents arrived with a search warrant and could be seen opening cabinets, scouring desks and packing up a computer inside the storefront campaign office of Tan D. Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant trying to unseat a popular Democratic incumbent.

Nguyen has acknowledged that his campaign sent the letter, which wrongly said immigrants could be jailed if they voted. He blamed a campaign worker he said he has fired.

Nguyen has resisted calls from leaders in his own party to quit the race, saying he did not approve the letter and did not know about it.

State and federal officials have been investigating the mailing for possible violations of election or civil rights law.

"We're aggressively pursuing our investigation to determine exactly who is responsible for the letter," Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the state attorney general's office, said Friday.

Nguyen was not in the Garden Grove office when agents arrived. A volunteer had said he planned to return for a mid-afternoon news conference, but instead his attorney, David Wiechert, arrived and cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

"A search doesn't mean the person whose office is being searched is guilty," Wiechert said as about 200 people including journalists, illegal immigration protesters and local Democratic candidates milled outside the office. "This is a political firestorm of high-ranking Republicans and Democrats speculating about an investigation they have no knowledge of."

County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh said Thursday that after speaking with state investigators and the company that distributed the "obnoxious and reprehensible" mailer, he concluded that Nguyen was personally involved. He said the party's executive committee voted unanimously to urge Nguyen to drop out of the race against Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez (news, bio, voting record).

The letter, written in Spanish, was mailed to an estimated 14,000 Democratic voters in central Orange County. It warns, "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

In fact, immigrants who are adult naturalized citizens are eligible to vote.

Investigators met with Nguyen for two hours Thursday, said his attorney David Wiechert. "He would do the public a disservice if he dropped out," Wiechert said.

Near Garden Grove in Santa Ana, Hispanic and Vietnamese leaders condemned the letter and said it should not become a wedge that drives their communities apart. They urged the secretary of state to send a letter to homes that received the mailing to clear up any questions about voter rights.

"This letter reminds us of what we were running away from in Vietnam, where people can't vote the way they want," said Xuyen Dong, who heads the Orange County chapter of the Vietnamese Professional Society.

Nguyen's campaign Web site says he was born in 1973 in Vietnam, where his family fled the Communist regime.

In 2004, he unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary to challenge GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (news, bio, voting record) in a heavily Republican coastal district. He later changed his party affiliation and declared his bid to upset Sanchez; he has made his opposition to illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign.

Orange County for years has been a battleground on immigration issues.

One founder of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group ran for Congress here, and cities have debated issues such as the value of public centers for day laborers and the use of local police to arrest illegal immigrants.

___

Associated Press writers Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles and Don Thompson in Sacramento contributed to this report.

posted October 21, 2006 08:03 AM              

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