The Senate Committee investigating E.Coli-Gate has released its preliminary results. Some of the ground in the report has already been covered (that the Governor’s office lied about what it knew and when) but other parts are new. In particular, we weren’t aware the extent to which the Governor’s office tried to obstruct the Senate investigation. Without the threat of subpoena power we’re sure that many of the details of this event would never have been made public.
Some of the highlights:
-People did get sick at the Lake of the Ozarks due to E. coli
-The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) employee who oversaw the water testing was, over his objections, told not to release the test results that would become E.Coli-Gate
-When the DNR provided the Senate Committee with over 500,000 documents and e-mails, it provided them in disorganized documents that were unsearchable
-When the Senate Committee investigated further, they discovered that the DNR legal counsel had requested that the documents be provided in such a fashion
-The DNR was not straightforward about how it released documents: it attempted to deny that it was withholding documents (that it had in fact withheld) and in one case was caught releasing only portions of documents
-While Joe Bindbeutel denies telling the Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance (LOWA) that Nixon was personally aware of the test results, another DNR employee (Scott Robinett) and a LOWA member both confirm that Bindbeutel did make that remark
-The DNR repeatedly violated the spirit of the Sunshine law by ignoring or delaying information requests from the public
-Many DNR employees have quietly questione the leadership of the DNR
The committee report says there were “executive level impediments” to the investigation: a euphemism for Nixon and his appointees instructing DNR lawyers to hold off the Senate investigation as long as possible. So much for accountability and transparency. To download the full results, go here and click on “LAGERS committee report on E. Coli”.
Meanwhile, the individual that Nixon used as a scapegoat (Joe Bindbeutel) is back to working for the state, courtesy of Chris Koster. This situation must be simmering for Bindbeutel: the appointment to the Administrative Hearing Commission that Nixon withdrew was worth six figures, and now he’ll make less than $60,000 per year. So a note to future Nixon scapegoats: it’s not worth it.
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