Did You Know...

Well, the dueling press conferences are over.

California GOP gubernatorial candidate and corporate whiz Meg Whitman, with her husband standing at her side, repeated her denial that the couple knew about Nicky Diaz-Santillan’s illegal alien status before June 2009.

Crapweasel lawyer Gloria Allred produced the document she promised yesterday — a Social Security Administration no-match letter addressed to both Whitman and her husband with what she claims is his handwriting on it directing the maid to “check” into the issue.

Diaz-Santillan apparently never followed up. And neither did Whitman or her husband. Not in 2003. And not in subsequent years, during which Diaz-Santillan reportedly saw other SSA no-match letters in her employers’ trash.

Allred noxiously compared Diaz-Santillan to Rosa Parks, cranking up the illegal-immigration-as-a-civil-right demagoguery.

But setting that typical Allred self-aggrandizement aside, this is what we are dealing with:

The Whitman household, contrary to the candidate’s flat denials, did in fact receive the red-flag letter six years ago. Contrary to Whitman campaign supporters’ insinuations that the maid stole the letter, she was apparently in legal, legitimate possession of it. Whitman’s husband gave it to her and passed the buck.

Will the campaign deny that Whitman’s husband’s handwriting is the real deal? Will they absolve Whitman by putting sole responsibility for the matter in her husband’s hands? Will they continue to harp on the maid’s fraudulent representation of her status in 2000, instead of dealing with the red flags [not just the no-match letter(s), but also the fact that Diaz-Santillan was banned from traveling back to Mexico] from 2003 onward?

California politics. Never a dull moment.

Update (DP): Mark Levin had Gloria Allred on the air, and it went pretty much as you might expect — but it was an interesting semi-conversation nonetheless. Listen here.

Update (MM): Whitman’s husband responds — and contradicts his wife’s plain defense that they never received the letter — by admitting that why yes, the handwriting on the letter could be his, but it’s the maid’s fault for not following up.

Lame.

More on Whitman’s “detail-oriented,” “wicked smart” husband.