The blog and contents of the entire greeklish.org site represent the personal views of the site's authors. The views expressed on these pages are the views of the authors alone and are not the views of our employers or of any organizations with which we are affiliated.
Copyrighted quotes and images obtained from third party web sites are used under the terms of Fair Use. Some materials used by greeklish.org are in the public domain.
Family photos are intended for viewing on this web site and should not be reproduced or used elsewhere without the permission of the owners and operators of greeklish.org.
Y'know, you could really spend a lot of time sifting through all the Coingate coverage from ONN and Toledo Blade.
The really amazing thing is that each new development brings with it a
twist or turn that you might not have seen coming. Take, for
example, the case of Ohio's Attorney General Jim Petro, who is now
facing the possibility of a contempt hearing before the Ohio Supreme
Court...
Attorney
General Jim Petro has been given until Monday to explain to the Ohio
Supreme Court why he should not be held in contempt for not complying
with its order to release coin investment records requested by a Toledo
newspaper.
The
newspaper had asked the court to enforce its July 13 order that the
state release transaction and business records from Tom Noe's
now-closed coin funds.
Petro
has about 120 boxes of records seized from Noe, whose handling of a $50
million state investment in rare coins sparked the investment scandal. (full story)
Just for the record, Petro will be appearing before the same justices who have declined to recuse themselves
despite alleged conflicts of interest regarding campaign contributions
which they received from Governor Taft. The ONN article
goes on to note that Petro has already released 3 boxes of records, but
that the AG's office is "reviewing" further documents before they are
released, because Petro is "shielding documents necessary for the
criminal investigation." Like Mr. Taft, Jim Petro is a Republican. He plans to run for governor in 2006, as Taft has now met his two-term limit.
Governor Taft is doing some "shielding" of his own
these days as well. He has released a handful of internal reports
related to BWC (portions of some documents have been blacked out),
although a substantial amount remain under wraps. According to
Governor Taft, he claims he "needs to shield the records to
govern effectively." Govern effectively? There's a joke in there
somewhere, but it's just too easy, folks.
The
Franklin County prosecutor says ethics charges have been filed against
Governor Taft's former top aide and an assistant to the aide.
Prosecutor
Ron O'Brien says he and Columbus city prosecutors jointly filed one
misdemeanor charge each against Brian Hicks and Cherie Carroll.
The
charges accuse them of accepting a condo stay and dinners from a
Republican Party donor who also won a state investment contract. (full story)
And just who was
that "Republican Party donor who also won a state investment contract,"
you ask? Why it was none other than Tom Noe, of course! But maybe you saw that one coming after all.
COLUMBUS
- Gov. Bob Taft asked the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday for a
"protective order" to prevent a Democratic state senator from
questioning him and Chief of Staff Jon Allison under oath about failed
investments at the Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
Kathleen
Trafford, a Columbus attorney hired by the attorney general's office to
represent Mr. Taft, said the sole issue in the lawsuit filed by state
Sen. Marc Dann, a Youngstown-area Democrat, is whether reports to the
governor from his high-ranking aides are public records under Ohio law.
[...]
Mr.
Taft's chief legal counsel has said the records are exempt from the
public records law because of executive privilege. Mr. Dann has said
executive privilege does not exist in Ohio law. (full article)
I had a quick look through the Ohio Constitution and Mr Dann is right - it's not in there. What is "executive privilege,"
you ask? A fellow named Michael C. Dorf wrote a a bit on the
matter for FindLaw in a piece entitled "A Brief History of Executive
Privilege, from George Washington through Dick Cheney"(full article). Most notably, Dorf explains:
The
(US) Constitution nowhere expressly mentions executive privilege. Presidents
have long claimed, however, that the constitutional principle of
separation of powers implies that the Executive Branch has a privilege
to resist certain encroachments by Congress and the judiciary,
including some requests for information. (full article)
The most notable (or "infamous,"
if you prefer) invocation of executive privelege was by the Nixon
Administration during the Watergate scandal. The decision from
United States v. Nixon includes this nugget which effectively deflates
Taft’s current position:
[N]either
the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality
of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute,
unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process
under all circumstances. The President's need for complete candor and
objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts.
However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad,
undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of
such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a
claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national
security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even
the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential
communications is significantly diminished by production of such
material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a
district court will be obliged to provide.
[…]
To read
the Art. II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege
as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on
no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in
confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would
upset the constitutional balance of "a workable government" and gravely
impair the role of the courts under Art. III. (full text of decision)
Add to this the July 13th
decision by the Ohio Supreme Court that the Ohio Bureau of
Workers' Comp must "provide the Toledo Blade newspaper with copies of
transaction records that disclose the sellers, dates and purchase
prices of rare coins purchased on behalf of BWC by Toledo-based Capital
Coin Funds..."(summary of decision)
While executive privilege is not
explicitly provided through the US Constitution, the right against
self-incrimination is covered in theFifth Amendment. Perhaps Governor Taft better have a read of that, because it looks like he may need to invoke it very soon.
The Toledo Blade, which is the
paper that broke the "Coingate" story is archiving their coverage in a
"Special Report" section entitled "Coins, Contributions and BWC."
