Email investigation wrap-up: broken laws, incompetence and obfuscation

Yesterday's report from the Matt Blunt email destruction investigation was disappointing and frustrating on a number of levels. Laws were broken. The former Governor's top lawyer didn't understand that state's laws. Blunt denies all the allegations of wrongdoing, but refused to speak with investigators to clear his name. And the cover-up worked.

The lowlights:

State laws were clearly broken by the staff of former Governor Matt Blunt's and maybe the Governor himself.

• The Beacon: The Governor's office's policies and actions were "insufficient to ensure proper compliance' with state laws governing record preservation and open records.
• The Post-Dispatch: [W]hile the governor’s office denied records existed in response to Sunshine Law claims, the ensuing investigation found hundreds of pages of documents that should have been retained and were responsive to the requests...Four requests came in that asked for back-up tapes, and those requests were never provided to the Office of Administration, which kept the back-up tapes.
• The Post-Dispatch: Blunt chief of staff Ed Martin [used] his state e-mail address to rally political allies to criticize Nixon over abortion issues and to criticize the process by which Missouri chooses its judges. Hundreds of Martin's e-mails were responsive to Sunshine Law requests filed by reporters and others, but they were not provided in accordance with the law, the report found.

Blunt’s top lawyer, Henry Herschel, did not understand the state's public records laws.

• The Post-Dispatch: Henry Herschel, who was Blunt’s chief counsel, didn’t understand state statutes. Mr. Herschel gave incorrect and sometimes contradictory advice to Mr. Blunt and other employees of the governor’s office, including Ed Martin, who was Mr. Blunt’s chief of staff.
• KMOX: Former Blunt legal counsel Henry Herschel was unfamiliar with his duties as custodian of records and "lacked knowledge of the Sunshine Law and record retention statutes."

Blunt, COS Ed Martin and Herschel were told that their behavior was illegal at the time.

• The Post-Dispatch: Scott Eckersley, who was Mr. Herschel’s deputy, told Mr. Martin and Mr. Herschel that they were wrong: Electronic records are public and must be retained. For his efforts, Mr. Eckersley was fired and his reputation smeared. His wrongful termination suit is pending in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Matt Blunt had the chance to clarify his involvement in the illegal activity, but refused the opportunity.

• The Investigators' report:  "What also has not been determined is why Governor Blunt left office with no public accounting, no explanation to the public, of his administrations' failure to comply with these two laws'' regarding record retention and public access to government records."

The investigators did not make a statement on Matt Blunt's knowledge of state record laws, despite the fact that he was personally involved in their creation.

• The Investigators' report:  Secretary of State Matt Blunt chaired the State Records Commission when it adopted the Agency Records Disposal Schedule for the Office of Governor. Secretary of State Matt Blunt was also chairman of the State Records Commission in 2001, when it approved and recommended "Guidelines--Managing E-Mail Records," and when the Secretary of State published "Three Things You Should Know About Electronic Records" on its website.

There will be "no public accounting, no explanation to the public."

• The Post-Dispatch: Mr. Blunt is in private business. Mr. Herschel took a bullet for him. Mr. Martin has become an all-purpose conservative gadfly — blogging, trying to block the sale of Anheuser-Busch, showing up on TV shows and serving as president of something called the American Issues Project. Mr. Eckersley is trying to get his reputation back.

The people of Missouri have been ill-served. Not as ill-served as the people of Illinois were by Rod Blagojevich, to be sure, but ill-served nonetheless. They paid more than a million bucks in legal fees to get stiffed by the people they elect to do their business.