The Boot Heel Of Government
An update to the story I posted about on Thursday. That report indicated that the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Helen Jones-Kelley, had ordered a search into state databases on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher aka Joe the Plumber. Now the Columbus Dispatch reports that a state employee was ordered to do the dirty work by her supervisor. And the state agency is apparently withholding the email that employee sent expressing her concern about the improper and probably illegal search.
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.
The senior manager would not learn about “Joe” for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.
The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
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.
So, we have a maxed-out Obama donor apparently ordering the search of the databases for no legitimate reason, as well as what appears to be an attempt at covering up the affair by hiding emails about it.
Worried about her $69,000-a-year job and potential criminal charges, the 15-year state employee said she went to Inspector General Thomas P. Charles on Oct. 24. She has seen employees fired, and dismissed one herself, for illegally accessing personal information in support cases. Niekamp, a registered Republican, said politics played no role in what she told investigators.
The e-mail that Niekamp said she wrote was not among records provided today to The Dispatch in response to a public-records request. Nor did the agency, as required by state law, say it withheld any records.
The attempt at covering this up appears to reach all the way to the office of Ohio governor Ted Strickland. One of his spokesmen defended not releasing the email. (Which doesn’t explain the apparent violation of state law, incidentally.)
The implications are quite clear for Ohio residents – do something the state does not like and you will be investigated. Even if what the state doesn’t like is just asking a question.
I’d guess the Columbus Dispatch can forget about getting a seat on Obama’s campaign plane, too.
By Quilly Mammoth, November 1, 2008 @ 11:12 am
People really ought to pay attention to the comparisons that Tito the Builder is making between Obama and (T)Hugo Chavez.