Getting the story straight: The scandal widens

Vanessa Niekamp, a 15-year state employee, wants to know why she was ordered by political appointees to dig for dirt on Joe the Plumber in government databases, and then cover it up. She told an Ohio House committee yesterday that she doesn’t understand.

The dirt, as it turns out, is in the Strickland Administration. The Columbus Dispatch has done a great job covering this story, and reports new details that came out during Niekamp’s testimony Thursday before the House State Government and Elections Committee. Those details provide the answer to the question of “why?”

The political appointee who actually conveyed the order to snoop in the database is named Carri Brown. Doug Thompson was the one who dictated the cover-up email that the Inspector General described as deceptive. But here’s the odd thing: Niekamp told the committee that both of them had access to the databases, and could have conducted the search themselves.

So, why order a lower level employee to do the search?

Because most government databases track who accesses them. And although political appointees have access, they do not spend their days and nights toiling over individual case files. It sticks out like sneakers at a wedding when a top bureaucrat accesses a file.

If it’s just business, then checking a file is no big deal. But the datadive on Joe the Plumber wasn’t business – it was pure political dirty tricks. To keep the search under the radar, it had to be done by someone who wouldn’t look like an Obama supporter. Let’s see, 15 years ago, when Niekamp was hired, the governor was… George Voinoich, a Republican.

And both Thomson and Brown knew what they were doing was wrong. Niekamp said that Brown claimed Joe the Plumber had contacted the child support agency about a dispute about how much child support he owed. (He didn’t, and Director Jones-Kelley later claimed she ordered the search because it was routine practice for the suddenly famous – which the Inspector General found was also untrue.)

And Thompson, Niekamp said Thursday, was “shaking,” and his neck was “bright red,” and he closed the door before dictating the cover-up email to her.

According to Ohio’s Greatest Home Newspaper:

"He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee -- which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause."

On the street, it’s called getting your story straight. Ohio deserves better than this.

First, practicing to deceive

A high-ranking Strickland Administration official tried to cover up his boss’s improper snooping on Joe the Plumber. The boss, ODJFS Director Helen Jones-Kelley, has received her slap on the wrist – a 30-day suspension – for her abuse of government power. Her acolyte has received neither sanction nor attention for his misdeed.

His name is Doug Thompson, and he is Deputy Director of Child Support. He worked for Jones-Kelley in Montgomery County. His action is buried inside the Inspector General’s report.

Joe the Plumber had his fateful meeting with then-Sen. Barack Obama on October 12. Four days later, Jones-Kelley, Assistant Director Fred Williams, and Thompson were discussing Joe the Plumber. It is unclear why three powerful state officials were discussing a private citizen – child support enforcement and welfare benefits are handled at the local county level, not at the State level, and certainly not by the head of a mammoth state agency.

Onward. On October 24, the news media broke the story of Jones-Kelley’s check for dirt on Joe the Plumber. The Governor did not request an investigation -- the Inspector General’s investigation was undertaken by his own initiative.

The actual check was performed by an administrative assistant, who had no idea who she was looking up. As things began heating up, Thompson came to her and ordered her to send a cover-up email. From the report:

“She said Thompson dictated to her the exact wording of an email that she was to send and “literally demanded” that she send the email to Rick Copley, Chief Privacy Officer, explaining that this SETS inquiry performed for Brown was for child support purposes. We believe that this email orchestrated by Thompson was an attempt to deceive as there was no agency function or purpose for accessing Wurzelbacher’s records.” (p. 7).

Who was Thompson attempting to deceive? The Inspector General, the media, you and me. It’s called a coverup, and it’s morally in the same class as the original act.

More importantly, why was he lying? Why order a junior subordinate to send the deceptive e-mail? No one would expect her to know the reasons she was told to perform the inquiry. If the original inquiry was justified, why not explain it over his own signature?

The answer is obvious: he knew it was political, unjustified and contrary to law. He wanted to be as far away from it as he could, and he wanted to keep his boss away from it, too.

Governor, he tried to lie to you. You will not be able to successfully govern if your subordinates believe deception is OK.

The IG report is available at at: http://watchdog.ohio.gov/investigations/2008299.pdf