Well, it only gets better when you try to dump on the Republican, Vanessa Niekamp. Ohio, you have a full fledged plumbergate on your hands now. You have a governor and a chief of staff (Kelley) having an employee do your dirty work for you. Kinda reminds me of the Nixon years. You go Ohio!!
Vanessa Niekamp also says her supervisors lied to her about the investigation, and then asked her to lie about it afterwards:
Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.
Niekamp didn’t know she just had checked on “Joe the Plumber,” who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain’s example in a debate of an average American. …
Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are “thrust into the public spotlight,” amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.
Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. “I’ve never done that before, I don’t know of anybody in my office who does that and I don’t remember anyone ever doing that,” she said today.
The case gets even murkier. The Dispatch, which has done yeoman work on this story, got the public records surrounding the Wurzelbacher inquiry — but Niekamp’s e-mail wasn’t included. Nor did the records indicate any redaction or gap, as required by law. Afterwards, a spokesperson for Governor Ted Strickland acknowledged the omission, saying that Niekamp’s status as a child-welfare agent exempted them from providing her e-mail.
November 7, 2008 at 4:51 AM
Frankly I do believe that is a violation of the Privacy rights of an individual and way out of line that this Governor should FIRE Helen Jones-Kelley IMMEDIATELY for her ACTIONS AND INVASION OF PRIVACY into this man’s life If the Governor isn’t willing to be MAN ENOUGH TO HE TOO SHOULD BE OUT OF OFFICE!!!! It does tend to IMPLY EVEN MORE CROOKEDNESS within the Democratic Party
November 7, 2008 at 1:53 PM
BJ The Democratic Party runs the show. She should never have felt that it was something that was her right to do. She should be fired. She went to law school. Tell me that she did not know.