Lamont And The Transparent State

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'...

Tolland had no choice in school contractors: 'Very assertive' DIAMANTIS 'dealt an ultimatum' to town...

LAMONT pledges transparency in ongoing probe of state projects, 'we'll get to the bottom of it'...

TOP LAMONT OFFICIALS WERE TOLD OF SCHOOL BIDDING COMPLAINTS IN 2020; LETTERS TO MCCAW AND GEBALLE CAME MONTHS BEFORE FBI PROBE AND DIAMANTIS' FIRING...

COLLINS: LAMONT's ship is burning...

MCCAW, GEBALLE, TONG KNEW

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.