In mid-February, Governor Ned Lamont announced he would be traveling to Israel in an attempt to persuade businesses there to put down roots in Connecticut, a state more business friendly and less expensive than, say, New York.
His media
availability at UConn was interrupted by questions from Connecticut’s scriveners,
and on the same day he announced his pending Israel trip, the following
headlines appeared in Capitol Report,
a news aggregation site:
Building Trades President: 'We never made it to that
item on the agenda'...
LAMONT pledges transparency in ongoing probe of state
projects, 'we'll get to the bottom of it'...
COLLINS: LAMONT's ship is burning...
The headlines in various papers suggested a less than
fond-farewell send off. An FBI investigation concerning possible corrupt
activity in the Lamont administration is underway, and reporters across the
state are on the scent.
FBI investigations, as we have learned from the seemingly
endless inquiry into collusion between former President Donald Trump and the
execrable President of Russia Vladimir
“Son of Stalin” Putin, can be turned to two purposes: 1) to uncover corrupt
activity on the part of politicians, or 2) to cover up corrupt activity on the
part of politicians. Republican leader in the state Senate Vincent Candelora
seemed to be worried that the latter eventuality might swamp the investigatory
boat. Any investigation, he said, should not be done by precisely those people
who may be politically injured by the investigation. Democrats in Connecticut,
it is well known, control pretty much the whole of government.
Now that the General Assembly had returned to a somewhat
normal post-Coronavirus condition, Candelora, according to a posting in CTNewsJunkie, sweetly suggested
that the legislature, tightly controlled behind closed doors for two years and more by Senate
President Martin Looney and House Speaker Matt Ritter, “should convene a committee
of inquiry to conduct its own review of those [questionable] contracts. He
suggested the legislature model its inquiry on the legislative committee that
investigated former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, who resigned amidst a
contracting scandal in 2004.”
A neat political touch there: Rowland was convicted by the same United States Attorney
from the District of Connecticut, John Durham, now charged with investigating
and prosecuting the political malefactors, some associated with the Hillary
Clinton/Democrat National Committee, who had produced highly imaginative
“evidence” that sparked a four year effort to wedge President Donald Trump from
office. Trumpeters in Connecticut are smiling brightly, and Democrats who had
hoped to reduce a Republican presence in the General Assembly still further by
tying Trump as a lodestone to Republican necks are biting their nails.
A proper investigation involving improper state construction
contracts cannot be undertaken by Attorney General William Tong’s office for
two good reasons: First, the AG’s office is charged with investigating civil
matters, and the FBI investigation may embrace criminal matters; and second,
the AG’s office is statutorily mandated to represent state agencies in civil
litigation matters. The office therefore cannot represent both state agencies
and whistle blowers. This would be comparable in any judicial matter to
demanding that the left hand should wash the left hand.
If Connecticut had in place a vigorous and independent
Inspector General’s office armed with a properly financed staff and subpoena
powers to compel testimony sworn under oath, the Feds would not now be sifting
through the executive department’s dirty underwear drawer.
Investigations of political corruption are like treacherous icebergs,
showing a tiny tip above and a broad base below. And they leak and leak and
leak. This sort of drip, drip, drip water torture sometimes results in across
the board changes in the reigning political structure – unless the corrupt
activity is improperly investigated by an agency subject to partisan political
persuasion.
Even judges and prosecutors – who should be, like Caesar’s
wife, above criticism – are sometimes drawn into the maw of partisan political
corruption. This sort of thing happens more frequently than people suppose,
especially when the state has become a one party operation.
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