Gardner apologizes following leaked audio

Keith Gardner

Gov. Susana Martinez’s chief of staff, Keith Gardner, telephoned Senate Democratic leader Tim Jennings to apologize for a crude name-calling tirade in a secretly recorded conversation with another Roswell man. But Jennings said Monday the apology had a hollow ring — and arrived just before a campaign attack piece sent to Roswell-area voters by the Republican governor’s political adviser. Gardner’s profane references to Jennings were part of a wide-ranging conversation secretly recorded in October 2011 by a Roswell man but recently released by a lawyer active in Democratic Party politics. The chief of staff complained on the audiotape that a just-ended special legislative session had “kicked my ass.” He went on to call Jennings, a Roswell-area rancher and the Senate’s president pro tem, a string of vulgar names and said he was trying to find someone to run against him. Jennings — who told the Journal he found the explicit comments “quite degrading” — said Gardner called him Thursday night while Jennings was eating dinner with his daughter. Jennings said he returned the call, and the men spoke only briefly. “I just told him we’ll sit down and talk in person on this deal,” Jennings told the Journal on Monday. Gardner could not be immediately reached for comment Monday. The governor’s spokesman, Scott Darnell, said the two men “have spoken with one another and Keith has apologized to him.”...

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Gardner apologizes following leaked audio