Arizona Rep. Ben Quayle is ramping up attacks on his GOP primary opponent Rep. David Schweikert for allegedly sending a young woman to spy on Quayle campaign headquarters last week.
In a recent email to supporters, Quayle referred to the incident as "Spygate," telling local outlets that his campaign staff became suspicious after the young woman, upon appearing at his offices and asking to volunteer, listed her address as the Islamic Community Center in Tempe and expressed interest in a tour of the office. After she left, someone from the Quayle campaign went to Schweikert headquarters on a hunch and found the woman sitting at Schweikert's front desk.
"Right when they walked in, they noticed the person was there, they said, 'Oh, we're busted,'" Quayle told the CBS 5 News team. The next day Quayle filed a police report after he found more than a dozen signs missing from his office.
Schweikert's team, meanwhile, has claimed the story is completley off-base. "We don't have an organized or unorganized spy program. We did not send a staffer over to their office, or anyone for that matter, to spy on them," Schweikert campaign spokesman Chris Baker told AZFamily.com. While Baker confirmed the alleged spy does in fact volunteer at the Schweikert campaign, he added she is only a teenager and that it's "disgusting and outrageous that [the Quayle campaign] would drag an underage girl, an underage volunteer, to the media like they did."
Redistricting has forced Quayle -- son of former Vice President Dan Quayle -- and Schweikert, both Republican freshman, to run against one another in Arizona's newly-created Congressional District 6 in the August 28 election.
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