Would Meg Whitman take a lie-detector test about housekeeper? 'Absolutely.'

In a frantic day of back-and-forth allegations about whether California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman knowingly employed an illegal immigrant, Whitman insisted she did everything right. The housekeeper's lawyer says Whitman is lying.

What did Meg Whitman know about her housekeeper’s immigration status, and when did she know it? That’s the question at the heart of the matter of Ms. Whitman and Nikki Diaz Santillan, an illegal migrant who worked for the California GOP gubernatorial candidate for nine years.

Whitman says that for the vast majority of that time she thought Ms. Santillan was legal, due to the state drivers license, Social Security documents, and other papers provided by an employment agency. Then the housekeeper revealed her true status in June 2009. Whitman says she then fired the woman within days.

Anyone who says differently is lying, said Whitman at a combative press conference Thursday dealing with the fast-moving housekeeper situation. The gubernatorial hopeful added that she would “absolutely” take a polygraph test to prove her truthfulness on the issue, and that the campaign of Democrat Jerry Brown may be behind the Santillan revelations.

RELATED: The political perils of employing illegal help: six memorable cases

“The Brown campaign and [Santillan’s lawyer] Gloria Allred are doing a massive smear campaign on me and my family,” Whitman said during a lengthy news conference Thursday in Santa Monica.

A Brown campaign spokesman denied that the allegations had anything to do with the Democratic candidate. On a day of allegations and counter-allegations, Ms. Allred hit back, saying that she had in her hand a copy of a 2003 note from the Social Security Administration to the Whitman family saying that Santillan’s Social Security number was not valid.

The purported government letter contains a hand-written message to Santillan to “check on” the matter. The handwriting is that of Whitman’s husband, said Allred.

“Meg Whitman lied to the press and public,” said Allred.

A major distraction for Whitman

What does all this mean for Whitman’s political future? If nothing else, it is a major distraction at a time when the former eBay CEO and Mr. Brown are locked in a dead heat in the polls.

Whitman has campaigned on taking a tough stance against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. So if voters think she did that very thing herself, it likely will weigh heavily against her in November.

Further revelations in the case could well make the difference in whether it becomes a minor speed bump for Whitman or a wall into which her campaign may slam. At the moment, however, it has dominated California’s political news for at least two days. Those are two days in which Whitman’s message has been largely blocked out of all media but her own paid ads.

Behind her forceful rebuttal

If Whitman cannot definitively disprove these allegations, the affair will affect her ability to campaign and reshape her public image in the voters’ minds. Perhaps that’s why on Thursday she was so forceful in responding to questions about the implications of the whole thing for her character.

“It speaks volumes about my character that once I understood I made a very tough call [to fire Santillan]. But it was the right call,” said Whitman.

Whitman has been heavily courting Hispanic voters, many of whom may not feel that firing the housekeeper under any circumstances was the right thing to do. The GOP gubernatorial candidate said that she believes one reason these allegations have arisen now is that the Brown campaign is worried about the inroads she has been making in a Hispanic constituency that in the past has been reliably Democratic.

“They took Latinos for granted,” said Whitman of the Brown campaign.

RELATED: The political perils of employing illegal help: six memorable cases