The chairman of the Colorado Republican party wrote  a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, slamming President Barack Obama’s pick for the state’s top federal prosecuting job.

Dick Wadhams stopped short of calling on the panel to reject the nomination of Stephanie Villafuerte to be Colorado U.S. Attorney. But he wrote: “Colorado deserves better than a U.S. Attorney who apparently might have used her former employer, the Denver District Attorney’s Office, for blatant partisan political purposes.”

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

We reported yesterday that Wadhams and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) are questioning whether Villafuerte asked employees of the Denver DA’s office to access a restricted government database to help the 2006 campaign of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

Wadhams highlighted a Denver Post article and editorial that are turning up the heat on Villafuerte, who is currently Ritter’s deputy chief of staff.

Villafuerte had discussions with staffers in the Denver district attorney’s office about an illegal immigrant who was featured in an ad against Ritter produced by his opponent, Republican Bob Beauprez, according to The Post.

But she told the FBI in 2007 that she had “no conversations� with the DA employees about the undocumented immigrant, Carlos Estrada-Medina, who is also an alleged heroin dealer, the newspaper said. Villafuerte has declined to comment to the newspaper.

“It is clear from the Denver Post story that, to be charitable, Stephanie Villafuerte was not forthcoming in her conversations with the FBI,” Wadhams wrote in his letter.

Republicans charge that Villafuerte is being treated differently in the matter than a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Cory Voorhis, who lost his job after accessing the same database on behalf of the Beauprez campaign.

A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told Main Justice today that the senator’s office hadn’t received the letter yet. A spokesperson for panel Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was unable to comment immediately.

President Barack Obama tapped Villafuerte for the post Sept. 30. She would replace acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Bush appointee Troy Eid resigned in January. The Senate Judiciary Committee has yet to consider her nomination.

Another Colorado Republican is expressing concern about whether the state’s U.S. Attorney nominee inappropriately used state resources to help her boss during his successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign, The Denver Post reported Saturday.

State GOP chairman Dick Wadhams has joined former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) in questioning whether Stephanie Villafuerte used a restricted government database for political purposes, which could be a crime, according to the newspaper.

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

Villafuerte, who is the deputy chief of staff to Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, has declined to comment to The Post.

The issue centers on discussions she had with staffers in the Denver district attorney’s office about an illegal immigrant who was featured in an ad against Ritter produced by Republican Bob Beauprez’s gubernatorial campaign. She told the FBI in 2007 that she had “no conversations” with the DA employees about Carlos Estrada-Medina, who is also an alleged heroin dealer. Estrada-Median had once obtained a plea deal under the allias of Walter Ramo when Ritter was Denver’s district attorney, according to The Post.

Republicans charge that Villafuerte is being treated differently in the matter than a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Cory Voorhis, who lost his job after accessing the same database on behalf of the Beauprez campaign.

“It is time for Stephanie Villafuerte and her boss, Bill Ritter, to finally come clean on possible inappropriate behavior during their efforts to smear ICE agent Cory Voorhis,” Wadhams told The Post.

Voorhis was charged in 2007 with using the National Crime Information Center database to look into Estrada-Medina/Ramo on behalf of the Beauprez campaign for its ad, according to the newspaper. Voorhis said he was authorized to use the database by his supervisor, The Post said. He was later acquitted by a federal jury.

“As the U.S. Attorney, will Stephanie Villafuerte offer help in investigating the corruption, perjury and malfeasance rampant in the Denver regional office of ICE?,â€� Tancredo, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, said earlier this month. “Will she be an advocate for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws after participating in the disgusting vendetta against ICE agent Cory Voorhis? The answer to those questions is probably … no se puede.”

The Post said the Obama White House continues to stand behind its nominee, who was tapped Sept. 30. Villafuerte would replace acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Bush appointee Troy Eid resigned in January.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a 2008 Republican presidential candidate and fierce opponent of illegal immigration, is criticizing the nomination of Stephanie Villafuerte for District of Colorado U.S. Attorney.

Tom Tancredo (gov)

President Barack Obama officially nominated Villafuerte (University of Denver, University of California at Los Angeles) on Sept. 30. The deputy chief of staff to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) would be the first Latina to serve as Colorado’s top federal prosecutor.

In a column on the conservative WorldNetDaily Web site, Tancredo cites a controversy from Ritter’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob Beauprez that resulted in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent losing his job.

The agent, Cory Voorhis, was acquitted of charges he improperly accessed a federal crime database for information the Beauprez campaign used to make a campaign ad that attacked Ritter for reaching plea agreement with illegal immigrants when he was the Denver District Attorney. One of those undocumented immigrants was Carlos Estrada-Medina, an accused heroin dealer.

Stephanie Villafuerte (gov)

After the ad was released, Villafuerte called a staffer at the DA’s office and apparently asked about Estrada-Medina. The DA’s office also accessed the same information as Voorhis in the National Crime Information Computer database.

The DA’s office said that the check on Estrada-Medina was done in response to media calls. But records released by the DA’s office in response to a request by The Denver Post “show no such media deluge. Instead, they indicate that the DA office’s work on Estrada-Medina also had its roots in a campaign,” the newspaper reported in 2008.

Voorhis lost his job over the matter. Tancredo thinks there’s a double standard.

“As the U.S. attorney, will Stephanie Villafuerte offer help in investigating the corruption, perjury and malfeasance rampant in the Denver regional office of ICE?,” writes Tancredo. “Will she be an advocate for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws after participating in the disgusting vendetta against ICE agent Cory Voorhis? The answer to those questions is probably … no se puede,” wrote Tancredo.

WND is home to conservative conspiracy theories on everything from Obama’s citizenship to the belief that health care reform would lead to “concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.” Recent headlines include “Will your thoughts be subject to hate crime laws?” and “How to survive the coming martial law in America.”

If confirmed, Villafuerte would replace Acting U.S. Attorney for Colorado David Gaouette, who has been in the position since Jan. 10 after Bush appointee Troy A. Eid resigned. Gaouette’s current 120-day extension expires on Dec. 8, at which point the U.S. District Court for Colorado would appoint a interim U.S. Attorney until a presidential nominee is sworn in.