Blunt's Eckersley Scandal, Day One

Former deputy general counsel to the governor Scott Eckersley revealed to the public this weekend that he was fired by Ed Martin and Matt Blunt for informing those men of several occasions that the governor's office was breaking the law regarding the provision of official documents.

For their part, Blunt and Martin deny that Eckersley was fired for advising the governor about his legal responsibility regarding the retention of emails and other public documents.  Yet while they deny Eckersley was fired on those grounds, their statements to the press are carefully crafted to avoid an outright confirmation or denial of whether Eckersley did provide advice about the governor's non-compliance to Martin and Blunt.

So --while there are many hundreds of very important questions that should and will be asked about this scandal-- I propose that the first question for which the press should Matt Blunt and his administration on the record is a simple one:

Did Scott Eckersley advise the governor or Ed Martin (or both) that the actions of the governor's office violated written policy on records retention?

This is a simple yes or no question.  It requires no complicated cockandbull about email accounts, timelines, documents or anything else.  Richie AuBuchon's involvement in the response is altogether unnecessary and extraneous.

The reticence of the Blunt administration to reply to this question before now says an awful lot about what the correct answer likely is.