Democrats call for probe into alleged backdoor deal involving John Swallow

Swallow, according to the Tribune, put Johnson in touch with Richard M. Rawle, owner of Provo-based payday loan company Check City. Swallow worked as Check City's lobbyist and in-house attorney until Shurtleff appointed him as chief deputy. Rawle, who died of cancer last month, contributed to Swallow's failed congressional campaigns and to Reid's re-election bid.

On Sept. 29, 2010, Swallow sent an email to Johnson saying he had talked to Reid's guy, Rawle.

"Richard is traveling to LV tomorrow and will be able to contact this person, who he has a very good relationship with. He needs a brief narrative of what is going and what you want to happen. I don't know the cost, but it won't be cheap," Swallow wrote.

In his statement Saturday, Swallow said he did tell Johnson the lobbyists would be expensive, but that he was never involved in negotiations over the costs.

Swallow also provided an affidavit Rawle signed before his death. In it, Rawle said he told Johnson he would need a nonrefundable $250,000 to start getting iWorks' position and information in front of the right people. Rawle said he received $50,000 from Johnson and $200,000 from Johnson's former business partner Scott Leavitt.

None of the money was paid or intended to be paid to Swallow, according to Rawle.

Rawle also said in the Dec. 4, 2012, affidavit that Reid did not receive any payments.

“I have recently heard that Mr. Johnson is making allegations that money was used to inappropriately influence a member of Congress. I have no knowledge of any such plan and expressly deny this allegation," Rawle wrote.

In a meeting with Johnson in April 2012 that Johnson secretly recorded, Swallow told Johnson that he did nothing wrong criminally but politically it was a different story, according to the newspaper.

Johnson told the Deseret News that he tried to get Swallow, a former state legislator, to drop out of the attorney general's race last April. Swallow replied he had no reason to get out because he did nothing wrong. Johnson also said he made a phone call to Swallow's GOP primary opponent, Sean Reyes, but Reyes didn't return the call.

A week before the election, Johnson, who describes himself as a diehard Republican, said he met with Democratic attorney general candidate Dee Smith to size him up. He said he told Smith he had information that would swing the race in his favor. Johnson  said he found Smith to be good man, but decided not to share his "bomb" about Swallow.

Smith did not return a call to his cellphone for comment Saturday.

Swallow was the chief fundraiser for Shurtleff's 2008 re-election campaign to which Johnson donated thousands of dollars.

Shurtleff said he and criminal prosecutor Kirk Torgensen met with Swallow regarding the allegations involving Johnson. Torgensen is now Swallow's chief deputy.

"I went to him and said, 'I need to know what you did do and what you didn't do,'" Shurtleff told the Deseret News last month. "There's things that Jeremy's saying and there's some documentation that may look bad and I think that's what people are basing it on. At the end of the day, I'm convinced John didn't do anything illegal."

Johnson said he is the victim of an unjust federal investigation into his company.

The FTC filed a civil complaint against Johnson in December 2010, alleging iWorks lured Internet consumers into "trial" memberships for bogus government grants and moneymaking schemes and then repeatedly charged their credit cards for programs they didn't sign up for, totaling nearly $300 million.

Federal agents arrested him six months later at the Phoenix airport before he boarded a flight to Costa Rica where he intended to start a helicopter touring company. The U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah charged him with one count of mail fraud in connection with iWorks.

Though Johnson has adamantly proclaimed his innocence in both the criminal and civil cases, he had intended to plead guilty to bank fraud and money laundering Friday in federal court. He said he was doing it because prosecutors threatened to arrest his family members if he didn't cooperate.