Secret recording stirs troubled waters for Attorney General Swallow

"I think you may have the wrong idea," Swallow tells Johnson at one point, adding, "I don’t know what the arrangement is, but I think, I think that they have lobbyists they pay on retainer."

Johnson and his business associate paid Rawle $250,000.

Rawle, who set up a company called RMR Consulting after meeting with Johnson in October 2010, said in an affidavit that he paid lobbyists with a portion of the money and took $50,000 for his fee, part of which he used to pay "miscellaneous" expenses. One of those bills was from Swallow for consulting on a cement project Rawle had in Nevada.

Swallow later returned the check, which came from the RMR account, and asked that it come from another account. Rawle then paid Swallow $23,500 from another account, according to the affidavit Rawle signed Dec. 5, 2012, three days before he died of cancer.

"At the end of the day, I felt the FTC was screwing you. I wanted to help you with that. I knew I couldn't do it myself, so I lined you up with Richard who I thought could help you," Swallow says on the recording.

Johnson replies that even though he didn't pay Swallow to "hook us up on this Reid deal," federal investigators would try to paint that picture.

"They will be able to get an indictment. They will flash that out in the news and it will be a nightmare. It doesn't matter if that's the truth or not," Johnson said.

On the recording, Johnson tells Swallow he and his business partner want $175,000 back from Rawle because "nothing happened. We were promised the world and got nothing in return."

Johnson recounts a meeting that he says Swallow attended where buying off Reid was discussed. He also talks about an email he says Swallow sent him after the meeting where "you spell it out very clearly that the money's going to influence Reid."

Swallow says he wasn't at the meeting and that he doesn't recall the email.

"You assured me that is what we needed to do to get the issue take care of," Johnson said. He also tells Swallow he will give him copies of the emails.

"I thought that if anybody could do it, these guys could. But I don't know for sure anything could be done," Swallow replies.

Johnson then agrees that Swallow didn't guarantee anything.

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 on and what you want to happen. I don't know the cost, but it won't be cheap," Swallow wrote.

It's unclear from the audio file whether it was that email or others to which Johnson was referring.

Johnson, who does most of the talking in the recording, says federal investigators want to talk to him and that he thinks the FBI might be looking into Swallow. He tells him that the emails Swallow sent — the ones Swallow says he doesn't remember — would be damaging to him.

"I could bury you easy, say John got us into this," Johnson says.

Swallow, who was engaged in the Republican primary election at the time, worries that "with this stuff hanging over my head, I don't know where I'll be … I need to see those emails before I know what I'm doing."

The conversation ends with Johnson urging Swallow to persuade Rawle to return $175,000.

"I'll try my darnedest," Swallow says.

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