Here is an accurate transcript of a conversation between Dennis House of Face the State and former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley. Mr.
Foley hopes to secure the Republican Party’s nomination for governor. Neither
Mr. Foley nor Governor Dannel Malloy has as yet formally announced their
respective bids for the governor’s office.
A great deal of commentary – most of it critical of Mr.
Foley’s comments -- already has preceded the posting of a transcript. But it’s
always a good idea to put first things first: First the transcript, then the
commentary:
DH: You also said something rather
provocative on Tuesday. You suggested that the governor may be trading favors
and when a reporter asked you for specifics, you did not. Can you do that today?
TF: Yeah, absolutely. You know last
spring I was working with Senator Markley to introduce a bill to raise the
ethical standards at the Capitol. And I've just been really disappointed by
what goes on at the capitol and what I've learned about the relationships up
there, the conflicts of interest. I’m concerned and in some ways disgusted, and
I think the governor in some ways contributed this. I think he had an
opportunity when he was elected to talk about transparency and to set a
standard, and he hasn't. In fact, he may have taken it to a new level, so…
DH: What kind of examples can you
offer us today?
TF: Well, first of all, I’ll give
you some examples, but first let me preface it by saying I’m not a news
organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these things and investigate
them. But these are all things that have been told to me by more than one
reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard. And they’re things
that are believed, so they’re a problem whether they’re true or not. It seems
that there are (sic) some substance to them, but I can’t confirm that they’re
true. So, let me give you some examples.
Umm, Dan Esty. Dan Esty is the head of a consulting firm…
DH: The Commissioner of DEEP…
TF: Yeah, he is now. But this is
going back before the election. And it’s believed, or I've heard, a lot of
people believe, that at his consulting firm, Esty…. Umm, Environmental
Partners, I believe it’s called, or some entity that he controls, was
compensating Dan Malloy…
DH: As a candidate?
TF: Well, not as a candidate, but
either with consulting fees or compensation or something of value. And in fact
it was not a (unintelligible), so that’s a problem in itself. So, this might
have been prior to his declaring himself a candidate or during the time he was
a candidate. (Unintelligible) I hope not, I don’t know. So, as soon as Governor
Malloy is elected, he’s made a commissioner of DEEP. So, to me, that’s
improper. It’s a conflict of interest; it’s a favor for something that was
done. And in that instance, if that was the case, that potentially is an
illegal contribution. When I ran against Governor Malloy, he was fully engaged
in the race. So there was no way he was performing any work for Mr. Esty, if he
was being paid anything. So it was… should have been a contribution if it was
during the campaign. So anyhow, this is something I've heard and that people
believe. I welcome the governor coming out and explaining, saying either that
it’s not true, or explaining that it’s different from what I am describing. So let me give you another one. Roy
Occhiogrosso. You know Roy huh?
DH: Oh yeah.
TF: He was the governor’s campaign
manager and, I think, ran communications and was a spokesman in the
administration. Earlier this year, Roy Occhiogrosso left the administration and
went back to his political consulting firm, the Global Strategies group. And
very recently, they’re awarded a very significant contract to handle, I
believe, communications and PR for the Health Exchange for the state, which is
a quasi-government entity, but their website is “pt.gov,” so clearly a
government entity. Totally improper, if this is the case of what happened, to
me, that somebody leaves the administration and turns around and within a very
short period of time a company that he’s a partner in receives a very lucrative
government contract. Umm, Andrew McDonald, a very close buddy of the governor,
now on our Supreme Court, was a partner in a law firm called Sullivan and…
excuse me, (Pullman and Comley), and they do a lot of legal work for the
municipalities that issue bonds. It is commonly believed among first selectmen
that I know that if you don’t use Pullman and Comley for your bond issue, it's much less likely that the governor is going to approve it, and he has sole
authority to approve all bond issues. And so they tend to use that firm to make
sure that their bond offering goes through. Whether that’s true or not, the
mere perception that that’s the case is creating a distortion in moving
business to a firm improperly. Finally, I got one more. Do you want to
know…
DH: No, go ahead…
TF: It’s been publicly reported
that there’s been issues with the governor’s travels. He took two trips to the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland -- It’s quite an expensive trip --
and another trip to China. And it’s publicly reported, and I think the
governor’s office has publicly admitted that some of the expenses of this
trip was (sic) paid by the UConn Foundation. The UConn foundation is primarily
a private funded organization. People who make those kinds of contributions
assume that they are providing money for UConn, for the education of the
students at UConn and making the program as good as it can be. It’s an improper
use of the funds. And I also understand that at least one board member was
called by a very senior member of the administration. A lot of pressure was put
on them, and they were (sic) reluctantly agreed to provide these funds. So
these are examples of things that I consider improper. If I were governor, no
one would even think these things were possible, because would set a standard
that was so high that even the perception of a conflict, or a friend, or
someone in your family getting business as a result of your holding office
wouldn't be believed.
DH: We obviously don‘t have the
staff here at Face the State to confirm these allegations in the course of this
program. I’ll obviously have to look into them. Are there any names of first
selectmen and selectwomen you can offer who have made these allegations to you?
TF: Not that I want to share.
Obviously, I wouldn't want to share. But there’s more than one; let me just say
that. And let me also say that I call on the governor to address these issues,
because if they… I hope they’re actually not true, because it would be good for
the citizens of Connecticut if they were not true. But these are things that
are commonly accepted at the Capitol as being true. And people are: Oh, that’s
just the way things are around here, or that’s the way the governor does
business. I think the governor should
come out and explain to us whether or not these things that people believe are
true. And if they are, and if here’s an explanation for them that would make
sense to reasonable people, explain that too. And if he doesn't, I hope the
media will go and look into these things. The media has the resources; that’s
one of their roles. And let’s get to the bottom of this.
DH: [Well, certainly after this]
we’ll look into the allegations. And I know that other reporters certainly will
who are watching this program. If these turn out to be false, these
allegations, do you think it damages your credibility as a candidate?
TF: No, because I think that the
perception that this administration does not have high ethical standards, that
favors are being done for friends and family, is there. And the mere fact that
it’s there is a problem, whether these things are happening or not, and a good
leader doesn't allow that perception to exist. They set a standard, and their
own behavior makes people understand that these things couldn't be true. So, if
I were governor, no one would be believing these things about my
administration.
DH: Do you believe Dannel Malloy to
be an unethical governor?
TF: Well, if these things are true,
he certainly has a very low ethical standard. Some of these things may or may
not be illegal, but they certainly, to me, get nowhere near the threshold of
solid leadership and ethical standards that should be present in Connecticut’s
government.
The commentary so far is pretty much what might be expected
from a media that is left of center and overly protective of Governor Dannel
Malloy. The chief concern of a media that lists to the left lies in shoring up
the left.
Some commentators may take Mr. Foley’s remark that his
representations during the face the State interview met a “journalistic
standard” as very far from the mark. But it is clear from his remarks that Mr.
Foley was addressing the standard of a “plausible charge.” He said he had more
than one unidentified “reliable source,” and the charges, as he outlined them,
were far from amorphous. Indeed, they were specific enough to arouse the wrath
of Malloyalists both inside and outside Democratic Party precincts.
The preface to Mr. Foley’s charges is not unimportant: “Well,
first of all, I’ll give you some examples, but first let me preface it by
saying I’m not a news organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these
things and investigate them. But these are all things that have been told to me
by more than one reliable source, and so it meets a journalistic standard. And
they’re things that are believed, so they’re a problem whether they’re true or
not. It seems that there are (sic) some substance to them, but I can’t confirm
that they’re true.”
Mr. Foley here is not playing the part of a lawyer
prosecuting a case. He is issuing an invitation to the media to take up and
investigate assumed improprieties.
Now, a charge of impropriety must begin somewhere. Charges
at the beginning of an investigation must meet a standard of plausibility;
certitude concerning the charge follows an exhaustive ongoing investigation.
Here’s an example: Before anyone in Connecticut was certain
that former Governor John Rowland had committed improprieties, there were
rumors of improprieties circulating throughout the General Assembly. Some plausible charges were tossed on the
desktop of a number of investigative reporters, reporters pursued leads and an
official investigation was opened at the conclusion of which Mr. Rowland
pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to steal honest services. No
reporter in the state refused to investigate the presumed improprieties swirling
about Mr. Rowland because they were mere unproven allegations.
Here are the first two paragraphs in a story covering Mr. Foley’s face the State appearance:
“Escalating his attack in a
campaign that technically hasn't begun, Republican Tom Foley blasted Gov. Dannel P. Malloy Sunday as a
chronically unethical leader.
“Foley, who says he has not yet
decided whether he is running for governor, offered a blistering, unsubstantiated,
indictment of Malloy as running an administration of back-slapping insiders ‘getting
special deals.’ Appearing on WFSB's ‘Face the State’ Sunday morning, Foley
declined to offer on-the-record evidence to back up his charges, saying that
his allegations meet ‘journalistic standards.’"
Well now, a charge made by one politician of another is very
far removed from an “indictment,” a legal term that presupposes a definitive
investigation. Legal indictments generally are presented by legally convened and
sworn grand juries that have considered and passed on evidence preceding a
trial. All pre-investigatory charges are by definition “unsubstantiated.”
At this point, Mr. Foley has merely challenged Mr. Malloy to
answer his charges: “And let me also say that I call on the governor to address
these issues.” He acknowledges he has
not the resources of a newspaper at his command: “Well, first of all, I’ll give
you some examples, but first let me preface it by saying I’m not a news
organization. I don’t have a staff to look into these things and investigate
them.” He hopes the rumors and innuendos are not true: “I hope they’re
actually not true, because it would be good for the citizens of Connecticut if
they were not true.” But he cannot deny that the charges, if true, are
consequential. At the very least, the
charges made by Mr. Foley rise to a level above that of water cooler gossip,
but his repeated pleadings that the media should investigate what one reporter dismissively
termed “back-slapping insiders ‘getting special deals’” is infused with the desperation
of a man who senses that Connecticut’s investigatory apparatus will not oblige
him.
Comments