The Source

Nixon Damage Spreads

 The latest casualty is Mark Templeton, DNR director and Nixon appointee, who is now on unpaid leave. In a Senate interview with Susanne Medley, she revealed Templeton's personal involvement in withholding the test results.

  Nixon told the press in a conference call, "I'm angrier than words can describe." It's clear how he wants things to turn out. He's settled on Mark Templeton as the scapegoat. Probably the first of many.

  This is a major reversal from two days ago, when he told reporters that communications could have been more "precise". It was a line you’d think you’d hear from a Little League coach, not a Governor.

  Nixon is also calling for the inspector general of the department of corrections to investigate what his appointees have done. If he actually goes through with it - Bindbeutel and Mazur will suffer fates similar to Templeton, based solely on information that’s already available.

  Nixon has yet to acknowledge his role in the debacle - either for his knowledge of the test results, responsibility for the behavior of his appointees, or the false information he has repeatedly spread. This new move can only be described as the nuclear option of crisis management.

  But it may also be a clever political move. If he can pre-empt the Senate investigation and set things on his terms, he can better cover up his involvement. He wants people to think he's cleaning house, so they don't look under the rug to see what he's hiding.

  At this point he really has no choice except try to get in front of the story and hope it doesn’t crash down on him - if he tries to stay silent, his administration is toast. What he has to worry about now is the angry responses from all the people he throws overboard. They won’t have any incentive to keep their mouths shut, especially with Nixon gunning for them in front of the cameras. Giving Bill Bryan (the new interim director) control over punishments in the DNR may be a way for Nixon to distance himself from the inevitable outrage.

 We were right that Nixon’s earlier strategy was all about delay, delay, delay. Now we know what he was planning. If this is the best he can come up with, we’re disappointed.

Jeff Mazur: Lifetime of Hypocrisy

When Jeff Mazur was a lowly blogger at Fired Up, he probably never dreamed that in just a few years he'd be concealing dangerous E. coli test results from the public. It's heady stuff. But then again, if he knew he'd be caught, he probably wouldn't have said a lot of the things he has.

For instance, he might have been easier on Ameren, the company who pays, as part of a settlement, for the E. coli tests he helped hide.

He might also have extended an olive branch to Matt Blunt, instead of accusing him of being unable to recognize his mistakes - something that Mazur and Nixon are having a little bit of trouble with right now.

One must also wonder if he wouldn't have been more polite to the Springfield News-Leader, which has played a big role in uncovering his role in these events.

He also probably wouldn't have complained about efforts to keep elected officials honest.

The image Jeff Mazur cultivated for himself online is a very different person than has been revealed over the last few weeks. Everyone knew he was a partisan hack, but now you can't even pretend he has good intentions - he is everything he has ever tried to criticize.

If he was true to the values he espoused when he was a blogger, he'd step down now and confess everything. What he has done over these past few months is worse than anything he has ever criticized his political opponents for. Why is he hiding?

Jeff Mazur is everything that's wrong about politics.

Daily Round-Up (9/30)

Time for Straight Answers From "The Firm" (Missourinet)
Nixon's evasions aren't satisfying the press or the public.

Local FBI Chief Hints That More Convictions Coming Soon (Beacon)
Were Jeff Smith and Steve Brown the first of many?

Senate Panel Rejects Government Health Insurance Option (Chron)
Health care bill steps back from the ledge - Pelosi still trying to push it off.

Democratic Rep. Won't Subpoena BofA Over Records That Could Damage Him (Business Insider)
Edolphus Towns runs interference for Chris Dodd, fellow Dems.

John Boehner Blasts Barack Obama's Olympic Move (Politico)
We're still trying to figure out what Obama is thinking. Is this really a priority?

Nixon Tries Redefining Reality

Nixon's last desperate attempt to route the E.Coli-Gate story is a campaign of disinformation. Information he supplied to the AP can only be described as misleading:

"Nixon said Monday that someone in his communications office may have been informed shortly after the Department of Natural Resources received results of the water tests.

However, the governor said the information wasn't passed on to him or other high-ranking officials in his office."

To put this in perspective, consider a few things. DNR protocol under the Nixon administration was to send all press releases through one Nixon aide for approval. That aide was Jeff Mazur, who learned about the test results the day after the results were concluded. Jeff Mazur is in Nixon's top echelon of aides, and according to Susanne Medley, "He was the communication contact I had and kept him updated on everything or any issue that might garner media interest or be of concern."

In other words, he was Nixon's point man during E.Coli-Gate. There's a reason why virtually every media outlet covering the story in detail has called him a "top aide." You can't get any closer and still have your feet on the ground.

Apparently his conduct during the crisis was so fantastic that Nixon felt he deserved a promotion, and on September 10 he was made the full liaison for DNR affairs. This is just one of several suspicious promotions for aides and appointees who bungled E.Coli-Gate.

The question of Nixon's personal knowledge also fails the sniff test. Joe Bindbeutel told Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance that Nixon was aware of the situation. Nixon's constant attempts to obstruct the investigation and kill the story aren't consistent with the behavior of someone who didn't know what was going on.

The sorry thing is that this new tale doesn't even agree with what Nixon was telling reporters five hours earlier. When pressed on E.Coli-Gate, he changed his story from "No one in my administration knew" to "I'm not sure". He got sure pretty quick.

News-Leader Fact Checks Nixon

Chad Livengood from the Springield News-Leader ran his own fact check of Nixon's Q&A with reporters. Like we did this morning, he found it hard to believe. An excerpt follows, you can read the full article here.

Gov. Jay Nixon is attempting to explain away his communications staff’s knowledge of a May report showing high levels of E. coli in Lake of the Ozarks by tying it to unrelated beach closings that occurred in June on the lake.

It appears Nixon or his staff is mixing the May 26 test that found high E. coli levels in 29 of 55 coves on the lake with the State Parks Division’s closure of two state beaches because of high E. coli levels during the month of June.

While the event two events entail elevated levels of unsafe E. coli in the water, they are totally different actions performed by two different divisions of Nixon’s Department of Natural Resources.

Nixon can't get his story straight.

Daily Round-Up (9/29)

Senator Says Revelations Show Need for DNR Review (Missourinet)
Missouri deserves to know the truth.

Absentee Ballot Fraud in Troy, NY (RedState)
Democrat party officials linked to voter fraud - caught sending in ballots on behalf of unknowing victims.

Former Rep. Steve Brown No Longer a Lawyer (STL Today)
Steve Brown gets disbarred, will be sentenced on November 10 - but he's still driving around with a State Rep license plate.

ACORN Head Organizer in Missouri Admits Dual Roles (24th State)
Glenn Burleigh draws a legally questionable line when it comes to using non-profit fundraising to bankroll political work - but hey, at least he's not helping sex traffickers.

Closed Meetings Mishandled (News-Leader)
When government officials think no one is watching, they play a game of 'what can we get away with'.

What Nixon Isn't Telling You

Nixon's brief Q&A yesterday was marked more by what he didn't say than what he did. We filled in the details.

What did you know and when did you know it?
The bottom line is obviously I think that there could've probably been more precise communication. But the bottom line is it wasn't a secret that there were challenges down there. That’s why those beaches were closed in May and in June, and the slowness of that report, once it came to decision-making situation we said get it out.

What Nixon’s not telling you: The DNR’s record for closing beaches only applies when Nixon appointees aren’t involved, and these particular closures have nothing to with the test results they concealed. Think this isn’t serious? The May 26 test results were the highest ever recorded by the DNR’s five-year study, and in some levels exceeded what the tests are capable of measuring!

Did any other employees in your office know about the report (besides aide Jeff Mazur)?
It’s important to put the entire thing in context. I’m standing here answering your questions. I’m not running anywhere. There had been already a significant number of (news) releases. Already a significant number of beach closures. Already a significant amount of public information already out there.

What Nixon’s not telling you: He didn’t have to run away to avoid answering the question. They had the test results in their hands and decided not to release them – who knew and when? None of the other closures are relevant. They weren’t connected to the Nixon administration or his appointees, and they didn’t coincide with the health threat they tried to conceal. Nixon has been trying to bury this story all along.

Are you prepared to dismiss anyone in your office who knew about this prior to the July release?
Once again, there was a series of tests done before that and a series of announcements before that done at the DNR level.
These were subsequent tests that were done that apparently were communicated to the communication shop, not to the policy shop. It wasn’t brought for a decision on a policy decision.
Once it came to a decision on the policy side, we said get the information out and take the policy decision that needed to be made.

What Nixon’s not telling you: The distinction between communication and policy shops is bogus. Mark Templeton, Earl Pabst, Jeff Mazur, Susanne Medley and Joe Bindbeutel were all involved – and that’s only the names we can confirm so far. Less than half of these people fall into the ‘communication shop’. In either case, this ‘model’ of doing things led to a DNR paralyzed by bureaucratic incompetence.

How many employees in your office knew about the e- coli situation?
A lot of people in Jeff City were reading on the front page of the paper in late May or early June that the beaches were closed by DNR.  Those decisions were made properly by that department as part of their regular duties.
So folks understood that there were challenges with the water during late May and obviously during the weeks of June that they were closed.

What Nixon won’t tell you: He didn’t answer the question at all – if they had released the May test results like they were supposed to, it would have been on the front pages. Instead, people were unwittingly entering E. coli infested waters.

But nobody was writing about pollution spread all over the Lake in late May.
When you see the front page of the paper and it says the beaches were closed by DNR order in May and for significant portions of June, those are pretty public actions.

What Nixon won’t tell you: These closures didn’t coincide with the health hazard discovered late in May. The risk to the public wasn’t mitigated at all, and was arguably made worse because people are so used to trusting DNR testing protocols. Can anyone even pretend this process is public and transparent, knowing that Nixon staffers and appointees lied to cover this up?

Is your office covering up its involvement of a decision in late May not to release these results?
Absolutely not.

What Nixon won’t tell you: They’ve already tried to – repeatedly.

(DNR spokeswoman) Susanne Medley had several discussions with (Nixon aide) Jeff Mazur and one time met to talk about the e-coli issue. Did he relay that information to anybody else?
I’m not exactly sure.

What Nixon won’t tell you: He’s had weeks to come up with a politically viable answer to this one but he’s still stumped. This answer is a delay measure and nothing more. In the meantime, his Administration had no problem lying to buy itself some time.

Do you want to know?
Clearly. We're in a situation in which for a number of times there were reports that indicated the water didn’t meet state quality. That is why with the authority that they have the Department of Natural Resources made the decision to close those beaches in May and for a significant portion of June.
They have that authority to do it. We pressed them forward to do it.
When a series of samples were taken later, there was discussion between the press shops, and I think we've all said they could have been more precise about what those communications were.
Once those communications came to a policy, to our office, we said release it and release it immediately. I think all of the documents and all of the information clearly shows that’s exactly what happened.

What Nixon won’t tell you: They would have closed those beaches anyway because it’s their normal protocol. In the one case where Nixon staffers got involved, Nixon had them cover up the test results. Not a great track record.

What do you say to Missourians about how situations like this will be handled in the future?
We need to clean up the Lake of the Ozarks. And we need to get into a pattern of making sure that we improve that water quality and at times that we have seen challenges down there.
I think we need to look at the bigger picture.
The bottom line is it’s a valuable resource. It’s an important tourism resource, and we need to make sure as we move in the future, we’re working to improve the quality of that water.

What Nixon won’t tell you: He won’t hold anyone responsible for abusing the public trust and exposing Missourians to a health hazard – unless it helps him escape this political mess, and then they’re gone.

A Comprehensive History of E.Coli-Gate

Patrick Tuohey of The Missouri Record has written this article for the popular conservative blog BigGovernment. It’s a comprehensive look at the shady insider dealings that created E.Coli-Gate:

George Santayana said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  This is certainly true in Missouri where the governor is embroiled in a burgeoning scandal dubbed ‘Ecoligate.’  His top staff apparently decided to keep secret a health report about a lake infected with higher-than-safe levels of E. coli.  As every political junkie knows, it’s rarely the infraction that brings down a politician, it’ the coverup that ensues.  Not only is Missouri’s governor a former 16-year attorney general, his name is Nixon.

These are the facts: On May 28, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) learned that regular tests of the Lake of the Ozarks found dangerous levels of E. coli.  In two areas, tests indicates levels 19 times greater than state standards, and half the swimming areas tested higher than federal standards.  In fact, some of the tests hit the ‘maximum sample limit.’ Department procedure dictates that this report should be released to the public.

But the results were not released.  Instead, the DNR deputy director and general counsel, Joe
Bindbeutel, claims he believed recent rainfall might have only temporarily elevated the levels and that an announcement could scare away tourists.  The results were kept secret.

When the results hadn’t been released, as had become the custom in previous years, people began wondering about the results. Requests for the results, which were public records, were ignored. A subsequent investigation by Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster absolved the DNR of wrongdoing because the requests did not specifically cite the Sunshine Law (Missouri’s version of FOIA).

The Governor’s office claims it hadn’t learned of the test results until June 23.  The media reported on the matter on July 15, and in that report, the spokesman for the Nixon administration criticized the DNR for not releasing the test results.  Nevertheless, Nixon appointed Bindbeutel to a $100,000 job with the Administrative Hearing Commission on June 24–the day after they claim they learned of the test results.

Springfield News-Leader reporter Chad Livengood learned from emails released to him that Bindbeutel had asked for copies of the tests on June 3 in preparation for a meeting he was to have with a Nixon aide at the Governor’s. Earl Pabst, a 35-year veteran of DNR and deputy director of environmental quality, also told staff that Bindbeutel was planning to meet with the Governor’s office to discuss the E. coli problem on June 4.  But the administration still says that E. coli was not discussed. Pabst has since announced his retirement. According to notes taken during a meeting of the Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance, Binbeutel, said that, “the recent water testing has drawn the attention of the Director of DNR as well as Governor Nixon.”

When  Livengood filed his Sunshine request for videotape to see which DNR officials visited Nixon’s office, his request was dismissed based on laws meant to protect security concerns from terrorists!  But, writes Livengood, “Missouri Capitol Police provided a Nixon political appointee a copy of video surveillance tapes of the governor’s office, apparently ignoring its own policy barring such  disclosures.”

Fast forward a few weeks and we have learned more.  DNR director of communications Susanne Medley has resigned without explanation and has not responded to media requests for interviews.  Transcripts of interviews she gave state Senate investigators indicate that she learned of the test results on May 29 and immediately passed on the information to the Governor’s staff.  This fits with the widely held view of the administration.  According the The Kansas City Star, “Nixon is said to run a top-down shop, meaning that his office is the focal point of all executive-level activity. Almost anything that goes on in state government seems to run through Nixon’s office.”

According to Livengood, Medley, “told Senate committee staffers investigating the department’s handling of the report that she told Nixon communications aide Jeff Mazur about the report on May 29.”  She reported telling him the “results appear high” and that DNR staff would meet the following Monday to learn more.  Medley said she called Mazur because all major news releases were to be run through him.   This contradicts Nixon spokesman Jack Cardetti’s assertions that no one in the Governor’s office knew until June 23.

The Source, a Kansas City blog, has written extensively on the topic and suggests that Nixon may have been trying to protect a benefactor developer, Lynn Griswold.  Griswold is a significant Democratic donor in Missouri, having given tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to  Democratic state committees and candidates.

Griswold is accused in civil court Missouri in a lawsuit “of developing condos by the Lake of the Ozarks without proper sewage treatment facilities.”  Untreated sewage can contaminate lakes with E. coli.  The Source reports that, “Missouri is trying to impose a civil penalty of $10,000 per violation per day. A notice of violation was served on 10/15/2004, and as of 11/3/2008, they claimed the violations are ongoing.”

Before being appointed elsewhere, Bindbeutel claims to have had a few meetings with Governor Nixon in June.  In one of those meetings attorney Chuck Hatfield was present.  (This fact “inadvertently” was not reported to Senate investigators.)  Hatfield is a former Nixon chief of staff, close confidante, and lobbyist.  Although not registered as a lobbyist for Griswold, Hatfield is Griswold’s defense attorney in the civil suit mentioned above.

The Source suggests that the most plausible explanation is that in one of the meetings where Hatfield was present, Bindbeutel mentioned the high E. coli levels to Governor Nixon.  The Source believes Hatfield may have asked Nixon to suppress the results and he did.  Ken Midkiff, chairman of the Missouri Clean Water Campaign agrees, according to the Columbia Tribune.  He told the paper, that testimony to Senate investigators, “confirms to me that the governor’s office directed and ordered DNR to withhold the data.”

Senate investigations into the matter are still underway.  But in order to believe the administration’s changing, and at time contradictory line, one has to discount Medley’s assertion that she was in immediate and repeated communication with Nixon aide Mazur; one has to discount Bindbeutel’s and Pabst’s contemporaneous claims that the matter was to be discussed with Nixon on June 4; and one has to accept that Nixon would have appointed Bindbeutel on the day after learning that he had been risking public health by sitting on a DNR report.

The Source’s conclusion seems much more plausible, and would explain the delayed release of the report and Bindbeutel’s appointment elsewhere, the refusal to release security videotapes, and the mini-massacre of resignation and retirement that has followed.

On Saturday, The Kansas City Star editorialized that Nixon has abused the “public’s trust and put people’s safety in jeopardy.” That’s the best case scenario.  At worst, Nixon has put the interests of a political contributor ahead of public safety and then orchestrated an effort to cover his tracks.

 You can read more of Patrick Tuohey’s work here. For more of the latest updates on E.Coli-Gate, keep checking back with The Source.

Nixon’s Press Conference Only Leaves More Questions

Jay Nixon took questions from reporters today on E.Coli-Gate, and did his best to avoid giving any meaningful answers. We have our own set of slightly more pointed questions.

  (1) Why did Jack Cardetti spread false information about your administration’s knowledge of the test results? Why isn’t he being held accountable? What about Joe Bindbeutel, who also lied? And Jeff Mazur, who went along with it?

  (2) Does your appointees’ inability to convey basic information about safety hazards to the public reflect a complete and utter failure of judgment on your part based on their selection? Does the knowledge that your appointees crippled a previously efficient organization even give you pause?

  (3) When is your administration going to take responsibility for what it has done?

  The last is the most important question.

  The Nixon administration did something wrong. They lied about it, they were caught, and they won’t even acknowledge it. Nixon is living in some bizarre fairy-tale land where he can lie again and again and expect people to believe him.

 At every phase during E.Coli-Gate, Nixon and his officials have lied, pleaded ignorance or refused to answer the tough questions. And every time a layer of the story gets peeled back, their act gets less convincing.

  Susanne Medley’s account paints a damning portrait of an organization run into the ground by incompetence, and where the ‘real work’ only actually gets done outside the view of Nixon-appointed bureaucrats. Ironically, Nixon now parades beach closures that have nothing to do with his administration as his successes – as if he should get credit for not having them silenced too.

E.Coli-Gate Turning Into An Ugly Free-For-All

When E.Coli-Gate first got started, Nixon had a clear game plan: disavow knowledge of the test results and do damage control in the DNR by scapegoating Joe Bindbeutel. At the time, career prospects for sacrificial lambs were pretty good: after all, the job title had a six figure salary.

 Then everything went wrong, and Nixon is bunkering down. Apparently taking responsibility for his actions is so unpalatable he's letting things unfold on their own - which makes us wonder what has yet to be revealed.

 His last rally in front of an incredulous press was on Thursday, when Jack Cardetti issued a watered-down version of their old story, which we fact checked. Since then, the Nixon Administration has been silent.

 The result? His appointees are being left to fend for themselves. It's not pretty.

 Some of the people involved, like Susanne Medley and Earl Pabst, have resigned. Others are staying silent, no doubt worried about saying something they will regret, especially if they have to testify under oath in front of the State Senate investigation.

 But at least one Nixon appointee is trying to set up the groundwork for a defense. Mark Templeton told the Columbia Tribune, "I understand that members of my management team had sought this information from technical staff and that it took several days for the analysis to be provided."

 Just like Cardetti’s statement, it lingers more in the land of fantasy than truth. Apparently, in the DNR 'days' is a colloquial term for 'weeks'. Somehow, he also neglects to mention that he was aware of the test results on May 28 and had regular communications with Susanne Medley about releasing the results through the following month. And during this entire period and all their discussions about how to proceed he never saw fit to help push things along.

 It's astonishing that he doesn't even acknowledge the role he played. Blaming his staff is a lame response, both in terms of excuses and recriminations, but it's just a sample of what is going to follow. Survival instincts are kicking in.