Scott Eckersley, a lawyer fired from Gov. Matt Blunt's office, filed a suit today that accuses several top Blunt aides of ordering the illegal destruction of state e-mails to prevent potentially damaging messages from being turned over to reporters.
The suit contends that Eckersley was fired for repeatedly pressing Blunt aides with warnings that such orders violated state record-retention and open-records laws. Eckersley's firing violated state law protecting whistle-blowers, according to the lawsuit.
So if Eckersley is telling the truth, the Blunt administration not only illegally deleted public documents for political reasons, but fired the guy who had the temerity to advise them that they might be breaking the law.
And subsequently the Blunt team took it upon themselves to destroy his reputation:
The governor's office claimed that Eckersley was fired for doing a shoddy job, tardiness, lying and using his state computer to do work for his father's private health care business.
A media packet provided by the Blunt administration at the time of the firing claimed Eckersley had registered for a "group sex Internet site" and noted that Blunt's chief of staff had questioned whether Eckersley used illegal drugs.
As a response to this, Eckersley has now sued for defamation, wrongful firing, violating whistleblower protection laws, and violation state open-records laws.
And now, of course, the Blunt administration can delete nothing, lest the court sanction them for destroying discoverable evidence.
Blunt was narrowly elected governor in 2004, riding Bush's victory in Missouri to a victory over Claire McCaskill. It's been all downhill from there for the youngest governor in the nation. He is up for reelection this fall, and has had dismal approval ratings for essentially his entire tenure, and is trailing his strong Democratic opponent, Attorney General Jay Nixon, by five points according to Rasmussen.
In fact, Blunt has long been considered the most endangered Republican governor up for election in 2008, even more so than Indiana's own unpopular GOPer, "My Man" Mitch Daniels.
I can't imagine that a lawsuit involving the destruction of public documents, the firing of a potential whistleblower and the subsequent smearing of the whistleblower, would help Blunt climb out of that hole.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/10/01241/3601/80/434173
not sure if this maybe has something to do with it????