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Talk is around City Hall and other PR shops in town that the FBI served subpoenas yesterday on Fleishman-Hillard in connection with the federal grand jury looking into possible corruption at the airport commission. Fleishman executives also reportedly got emails warning them to retain and safeguard documents that might become evidence. My calls to the PR giant's headquarters in St. Louis have not yet been returned. Fleishman's Los Angeles office, until recently headed by Doug Dowie, is deeply involved with the Hahn Administration, providing advice and helping to raise money for the mayor's campaigns and his fight against Valley secession.
* Update 5:30 p.m.: Ana Garcia did a story on the Channel 4 News confirming two subpoenas and quoting a Fleishman statement that "we are cooperating fully." The story put the request for documents in the context of the recent resignations of Ted Stein and deputy mayors from the mayor's office.
** Friday update: The Times story (by Jessica Garrison) has a source saying the subpoenas are for all emails between Fleishman's L.A. office and City Hall for a period of years. That could be some potentially explosive email, at least politically, as there's been a lot of traffic between Fleishman boss Doug Dowie and key mayoral aides. Times reporter Patrick McGreevy obtained and wrote about some of that email last year, and email to Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook was also the source of Dowie's now-famous quote about serving cheap booze to reporters at the mayor's holiday party (see below). Today's Daily News and Daily Breeze stories say the subpoenas broadly seek any written communications.
Previously at L.A. Observed: Dowie kicked upstairs?, Cripes, it's the media, Upheaval in the mayor's office. For more background, see my story on Fleishman-Hillard in January's Los Angeles magazine.