MISSOURI GOVERNOR DENIES CONTACT WHICH WHITE HOUSE AFFIRMED; LT. GOV. VOWED TO OBTAIN RECORDS
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 1, 2015) — On December 29, The Post & Email reported that a Missouri Sunshine Law response received from the office of Missouri Gov. Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon (D) differed from public statements made by Principal Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz regarding contact between Nixon and the White House as the Ferguson, MO grand jury announcement saga unfolded beginning on November 24, 2014.
Missouri is unofficially known as the “Show-Me State.” Ferguson is located in St. Louis County established on the Wabash Railroad route in 1855.
The Post & Email received no documentation of any phone contact between Nixon’s office and the White House during the month of November, and emails generally related only to scheduled public events rather than the developing situation in Ferguson.
Following Prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s announcement that the St. Louis grand jury did not find probable cause to issue a “True Bill” of indictment against Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson for Michael Brown’s death, businesses were looted, set on fire, windows broken, and shots fired.
A confrontation on August 9 between Wilson and the 18-year-old Brown culminated in Wilson’s shooting Brown, killing him, after which protests included destruction of property both in Ferguson and in other cities across the country against alleged police brutality and racism directed against blacks. On August 16, Nixon declared a state of emergency by executive order, summoning into service “portions of the organized militia,” or the state National Guard.
An observer described the August mayhem as “something you would see on TV in a third-world country.”
As protests, looting, fires, and injuries occurred in Ferguson on the evening of November 24, Mayor James Knowles said he was unable to reach Nixon despite Nixon’s announcement weeks before that the National Guard had been activated in anticipation of the announcement of the grand jury’s decision.
Nixon activated 700 members of the Guard but dispatched them to St. Louis and Clayton, not Ferguson. In explanation, Nixon said that law enforcement had been “working on the dual pillars” of “safety and speech.” “You didn’t want to have a Kent State situation. You certainly didn`t want to have a situation where Guardsmen who had only been there a few hours, who had not been used to the very kinetic atmosphere of people throwing things, screaming things at the very front tip of that spear. That was the plan. I think it has prevented loss of life,” Nixon was quoted as having said.
On November 25, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (R) said during a Fox News interview that Nixon failed to order the Missouri National Guard to patrol Ferguson adequately on November 24 because of a “stand down order” issued from the White House.
Kinder is serving an unprecedented third term as Missouri’s Lt. Governor and does not work with Nixon politically. He was a state senator for 12 years which included serving as Senate Pro Tem.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee opined to Newsmax TV that in the wake of the uncurbed violence in Ferguson on the evening of November 24, Nixon was “the most derelict governor I’ve ever seen.” Huckabee further stated:
His use of the National Guard was disgusting and deplorable. There’s no point in bringing the guard in if you’re not going to put them in front of the stores and keep people from running in and looting them. Gov. Jay Nixon, if he finishes out his term, will do it with disgrace because of the absolutely just disgusting manner in which he’s handled this.
Schultz spoke to major media following Obama’s November 20 announcement that he would grant deferred deportation to millions of illegal aliens without Congress having amended or passed a law. Schultz was also involved in trying to silence former CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson on her reportage of the Fast & Furious gunrunning scandal in 2011 as exposed by Judicial Watch through a FOIA request and subsequent lawsuit for the documentation.
Schultz routinely tweets “news” items about the Obama regime and calls 2014 “a year of action.” A story appearing in Schultz’s twitter feed from TalkingPointsMemo states:
President Barack Obama can thank outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for triggering the “nuclear option” in November 2013 and securing him one of the most robust judicial legacies of any modern president.
In six years, he has appointed a whopping 307 judges, who will shape the law for decades after he leaves office. The final 12 district judges were confirmed in the closing night of the Senate session on Tuesday, Reid’s final move before Democrats surrender control of the chamber.
“The Obama Administration and the United States Senate have given Americans the best possible holiday present: the gift of justice,” said Nan Aron, the president of the progressive law and policy group Alliance For Justice.
In an October 2011 email exchanged with then-DOJ top media aide Tracy Schmaler in which Schmaler described Attkisson as “out of control” and said she intended to speak to Attkisson’s editor about silencing her, Schultz had written, “Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG.”
The White House Media Affairs desk did not respond to The Post & Email’s November 29 email asking about potential White House contact with Nixon that month.
On the same day, The Post & Email submitted its Sunshine Law request through a contact portal on Nixon’s website. The request was acknowledged in a letter delivered by email by Executive Assistant Judy Murray on December 1 which stated that more time would be required to gather the responsive records.
The letter was signed by Nixon’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Peter Lyskowski.
On December 26, The Post & Email received documentation responsive to the request through the U.S. Postal Service. We were not charged for postage or copying, which we had offered to pay if necessary.
After publishing our report, The Post & Email recontacted Murray to ascertain that we received all of the responsive records, to which she responded in the affirmative after having checked with Lyskowski.
Lyskowski has oversight over five executive-branch agencies, but his name does not appear in a search of the governor’s website under “Deputy Chief of Staff.”
Chris Pieper, who also serves as the head of several agencies, is Nixon’s chief of staff.
The Missouri Constitution states that if the governor dies in office or before being inaugurated, the lieutenant governor or lieutenant governor-elect “shall take the term of the governor-elect.” While the governor’s powers and duties are denoted in detail, those of the lieutenant governor are described in one paragraph in Article IV, Section 10:
Not described in the Constitution but assumed by Kinder is the role of “Senior Advocate,” in which Kinder has promoted legislation providing prescription drug coverage to the elderly poor and an Assisted Living bill. Kinder has also advocated for assistance for families of military members deployed away from home for extended periods.
Kinder has considered and planned to run for governor himself on at least two occasions but has been deterred by news stories linking him to a former employee at a club which he admits having patronized. However, despite an advertising campaign conducted by his closest opponent in the November 2012 general election, Kinder won re-election to his third term over State Auditor Susan Montee.
Kinder said during his Fox News interview that “he will seek emails between the office of Gov. Jay Nixon and the White House to determine whether coordination was happening on Monday night when Ferguson was erupting in riots.” He also suggested that Nixon’s office might be committing the crime of destroying evidence of such coordination.
After the first night of protests and destruction, Nixon said that the situation was “unacceptable” and tripled the number of National Guardsmen in Ferguson. “I am deeply saddened for the people of Ferguson who woke up to see parts of their community in ruins. No one should have to live like this, no one deserves this. We must do better and we will,” NBC News reported was Nixon’s reaction.
On December 29, we contacted Kinder’s office through his website contact portal and wrote:
EMAILS/PHONE CALLS BETWEEN GOV. NIXON AND THE WHITE HOUSE
I have received 20 pages of documents in response to a Sunshine Law request submitted to the governor’s office in late November regarding emails and phone call records exchanged between Gov. Nixon and anyone in the White House. There are no records of any phone calls exchanged, despite White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz’s statement that WH Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett and Nixon were “keeping in touch” during that time: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/11/26/confirmed-valerie-jarrett-keeping-tabs-on-gov-nixon-in-ferguson-fiasco/
This morning, I double-checked with my initial contact, Judy Kay, to make sure that I was provided all of the records responsive to my request, and Ms. Kay affirmed that according to Peter Lyskowski, I was.
Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 195
Stafford Springs, CT 06076
editor@thepostemail.com
to which we received the following response:
| From: | Jones, Willis (Willis.Jones@ltgov.mo.gov) |
| Sent: | Mon 12/29/14 5:20 PM |
| To: | ‘editor@thepostemail.com’ (editor@thepostemail.com) |
The Office of the Lt. Governor is constitutionally independent from the Office of the Governor. We rarely have interaction with Governor Nixon’s office, nor do we have any oversight, therefore we have no way of confirming whether your Open Records Request was responded to properly. I suggest you contact Gov. Nixon’s office at 573-751-3222.
Willis Jones
Director of Constitutent Services
Office of Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder
Capitol Building, Room 424
Phone 573-751-4010
to which The Post & Email replied:
| From: | Sharon Rondeau (editor@thepostemail.com) |
| Sent: | Mon 12/29/14 6:45 PM |
| To: | Jones, Willis (willis.jones@ltgov.mo.gov) |
Hello Ms. Jones, thank you for your response. I simply wanted to inform you of the outcome of my Sunshine Law request for emails and phone calls between Gov. Nixon and the White House given the Lt. Governor’s public position in late November that pressure from the White House might have affected the deployment of Missouri National Guard troops on the evening of November 24. Mr. Kinder also said to Sean Hannity, “Remind everyone working for the governor and the executive branch that the destruction of emails is an offense punishable under our criminal laws, and they should not be doing that.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Jay-Nixon-Peter-Kinder-emails-White-House/2014/11/26/id/609866/
I have thoroughly queried the governor’s office and they insist that I received everything responsive to my request, although public reports appear to contradict that no emails or phone calls between Gov. Nixon’s office and the White House were exchanged during the month of November.
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/11/07/president-obama-chats-with-gov-nixon-about-ferguson/
Are you able to say whether or not Lt. Gov. Kinder obtained any emails and/or phone records between the aforementioned parties, as he stated he would attempt to do?
Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 195
Stafford Springs, CT 06076
to which we received no response.
On January 1, 2015, The Post & Email sent the following Sunshine Law request to Kinder’s office via email:
EMAILS/PHONE CALL RECORDS BETWEEN GOV. JAY NIXON AND WHITE HOUSE PERSONNEL
Under Missouri’s Sunshine Law (http://ago.mo.gov/sunshinelaw/), I am requesting the following if they are in your possession:
1. Records of phone calls occurring between November 1, 2014 and November 29, 2014, between the office of Gov. Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon and any White House staff
2. Emails occurring between November 1, 2014 and November 29, 2014 between the office of Gov. Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon and any White House staff
Thank you very much.
Sharon Rondeau, Editor
The Post & Email
www.thepostemail.com
P.O. Box 195
Stafford Springs, CT 06076
What happened to Republican Commissioner Jim Miller who was murdered by Monroe County Tennessee Police Chief and 3 LEO’s there? How was closure on the family? When will the Police Chief and LEO’s be prosecuted for that crime? Don’t worry, their out fishin’ right now, check back later.
Another state with corrupted law at the top stepping hand over foot to cover up and white wash with damage control to keep entitlement paychecks and benefits flowing as normal. It is almost a comedy as in Tennessee where that state has been operating outside the law for decades and state laws since 1984 when state judicial ordered all lower courts to carry out criminal cases only at district levels and that order was completely ignored. Now, a Florida case with another Veteran who exposed judicial corruption on a power crazed newly elected official and the town has turned against him rather than investigate the nut job power grabber they installed, meanwhile, wasting tons of taxpayer money on lawyers and court cases that are not even legal just to protect “their own” operating out of control inside the system doing illegal things.
He said – she said. Just more political games that tell the public that those in power think those not in power are unworthy peons. Another epidemic the CDC has no control over.