In a relentless hate campaign, Mayor Jerry Sanders's publicist, Fred Sainz, flooded local media with hit pieces on City Attorney Mike Aguirre, a study of Sainz's emails in August, September, and October of last year reveals. Blogger Pat Flannery got these emails when researching the wrongful termination lawsuit that former top City official Rick Reynolds has filed; he had protested what he considered unethical emails sent by Sainz. Reynolds got the boot for wanting ethicality at City Hall. On October 5, Sainz enthused to Scott Lewis of the Voice of San Diego, 'YOU WILL LOVE THIS ONE...Be prepared to laugh your ass off." Sainz had learned that Aguirre was no longer a Certified Fraud Examiner. The same day, Sainz dropped the same message, more subdued, to Gerry Braun and Jennifer Vigil of the Union-Tribune and David Rolland of CityBeat. "It was a glitch," says Aguirre. The organization representing the fraud examiners called him: "I was reinstated before anybody could write about it." On Aug. 21, Sainz sent notes to Braun and Andrew Donohue of the Voice, pointing out what he considered "typical incompetence" of the city attorney's office. On Oct. 11, Sainz was claiming that Aguirre had an ethical problem because money donated to his campaign by some staffers might have gone into retirement of his debt, and therefore to Aguirre. This is the issue that got the Union-Tribune in deep trouble. With Sainz's help, it had printed both an editorial and a purported news story saying that Aguirre had broken the City's ethics rules by permitting staffers to donate to his campaign. But the Ethics Commission immediately said this could only be a problem if Aguirre had solicited the money. He hadn't. Later, buried deep in the paper in opaque prose, the U-T admitted it was wrong. When seeking information on this issue, editorial writer Robert Kittle of the U-T had committed an unprofessional act (one of several by him) by asking questions to Aguirre in an email, then adding bullyingly, "When are you going to resign?" One of the issues in the Reynolds lawsuit is an email using inappropriate language that Sainz sent to Kittle Sept. 7 of last year. The City has not provided that letter."Do you see how obsessed these people are?" says Aguirre. "You can't run a city with political operatives from the Golding administration, Fred Sainz and Kris Michell (the mayor's political advisor). It's the old Golding tricks of misinformation, politics over careful thinking."