“Hot Mike” Duvall’s lascivious braggadocio wasn’t just of interest to millions of blog readers. It also attracted the attention of the Feds.
The FBI is investigating the former California state lawmaker’s now-legendary claim that he was having an affair with a woman later identified as a lobbyist for an energy company. “We did make contact with the two aides,” a bureau spokesman confirmed to the Los Angeles Times.
One of those, say the paper’s sources, is Carolyn Ginno, Duvall’s former chief of staff.
After a California TV station last month aired video of Duvall’s filthy sexual boasting to a colleague, media reports identified one of the two women he was referring to as Heidi Barsuglia, a lobbyist for Sempra Energy. Duvall, a Republican, was vice chair of the legislative committee that oversees energy issues, raising the possibility that he could have traded political favors for sex. Barsuglia, through her employer, has denied an affair.
Duvall resigned from public office in the wake of the scandal.
That act appears to have short-circuited an ethics probe by the Assembly into the episode. The Assembly Speaker told the Times that because Duvall stepped down, he was no longer subject to the committee’s jurisdiction.
But now the FBI is on the case.