Scott Eckersley has announced that not only he will sue Gov. Matt Blunt's office for defamation of character, but that he will also sue several, as yet unnamed, Republican blogs for joining in the smear campaign.
In today's Kansas City Star their resident political stenographer finally notices [tiny URL] that something is afoot with this e-mail thingy plaguing the "baby" Blunt Administration:
...There's only one option left for Gov. Matt Blunt....
That's a major staff shake-up that includes the ouster of his pedal-always-to-the-metal chief of staff, Ed Martin.
Only a move that dramatic, that far-reaching, will help Blunt shake off the aftertaste of a miserable month that has left his administration facing a probable lawsuit from a fired staff lawyer and a special investigator nipping at its heels.
This flare-up, of course, could hardly come at a more inopportune time....
Team Blunt has stepped in it. "It" is a combination of feces and bubblegum that stinks and sticks. Not all that many Missourians are paying attention to the scandal yet, but they will because, not only is it not going away, it's gaining momentum. The furor bids fair to last into the campaign season and even to wind up in court.
Someone (Jay Nixon, eventually?) might sue the governor's office for deleting e-mails in contravention of the state's Sunshine Law and for refusing to reveal all the documents pertaining to this case. But that scenario is still distant. For now, Nixon is staying out of it and watching Bluntco hoist itself on its own petard.
Another thread of the scandal that could end up in court is the brouhaha over whether the state broke into Scott Eckersley's private e-mail account. When Bluntco got wind that Eckersley had contacted the press, the office decided to preemptively smear him in the media. The state mailed boxes of his records, unsolicited, to the Post-Dispatch and to Tony Messenger at the Springfield News-Leader. Eckersley has proof that some of the e-mails in those boxes had to have been obtained from his private e-mail account. Hacking into a private account is illegal.
...Democrat Jay Nixon is facing Republican charges that he broke the law by using his taxpayer-funded car for his political campaign.
Republican incumbent Matt Blunt is up to his nostrils in the Scott Eckersley caper. Eckersley is a former Blunt administration lawyer who was fired Sept. 28. Democrats and Republicans are in unison on that much....
The to-do between Scott Eckersley and the entire Blunt administration hinges on one contested issue: Did Eckersley, previous to his firing, warn the governor that deleting e-mails was illegal under the Sunshine Law?
Blunt's office, in the person of Rich AuBuchon, has insisted there are no such e-mails:
"Mr. Eckersley never once voiced a concern, never once wrote an e-mail, never once talked to other employees in the office evidencing any concern that the governor's office was not complying with the Sunshine Law or any record-retention policies."
So far, we don't have the definitive answer, but we do have a pile of circumstantial evidence that Baby Blunt is lying. To begin with, Blunt is hiding the e-mails in question behind attorney-client privilege. Possible motives for doing that would be:
a) He wants to keep the story going, so that he can continue to look bad.
b) Like his role model, George Stonewall-'em Bush, he thinks no one should have the right to ever question him or make him prove anything.
c) There are several e-mails in there that would hang him, and he'd rather look guilty than be caught with his pants down.
Without the definitive proof, reporters are left to work with what they've got, and that would be the boxes of Eckersley's effects that the Blunters shipped to the Post-Dispatch and to Tony Messenger at the Springfield News-Leader. According to Messenger, there are items of interest in those boxes:
Some caution is advisable in taking Scott Eckersley's word against the entire Blunt administration. After all, Eckersley did take a job with those scummy people, so why should we assume that the young lawyer is a pure-as-the-driven-snow idealist.
In the game of "he said/they said", Eckersley claims he told the higher ups in the governor's office that their policy of deleting e-mails was illegal. They didn't like to hear that, so they fired him and promised to smear his character if he complained. They say he never said any such thing--until after he was fired for moral turpitude.
He claims he wouldn't have gone public if they had at least given him a recommendation so he could get another job, preferably with the Romney campaign. They say he tried to extort the Romney job from them by inventing this tale about warning them to stop deleting e-mails.
Some "he said/they said" brouhahas are impossible to sort out, but not this one. This one's plain. Bluntco is lying through its collective teeth, and as liars, they blunder around like drunks. As much practice as they get at evasion, equivocation and stretching the truth, you'd think they'd develop some skills.
Team Blunt has stepped in it. "It" is a combination of feces and bubblegum that stinks and sticks. Not all that many Missourians are paying attention to the scandal yet, but they will because, not only is it not going away, it's gaining momentum. The furor bids fair to last into the campaign season and even to wind up in court.
