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Regnad Kcin?
posted at 2010-02-04 09:29 | Last modified 2010-02-04 09:33
Regnad Kcin
The N&O’s Ben Niolet and Mike Biesecker have more details today on a private email account former Mike Easley aides say the then-governer sometimes used for state business.
If you remember, in 2008, several media outlets sued the governor’s office over access to email records. At the time, HHS spokeswoman Debbie Crane said she’d been told by senior Easley staffers to delete messages to and from the governor’s office every day. The office denied Crane’s story, and she was fired at about the same time for “insubordination.”
The new information about the governor’s emails came out in depositions for the case taken last month from four senior staffers. According to the story, former communications directors Cari Boyce and Sherri Johnson both denied instructing agency staff to delete emails. But former CCPS spokeswoman Renee Hoffman, who also went on to serve as Easley’s press secretary, backed up Crane’s story about having been told to delete them.
The depositions, released yesterday to the N&O and the John Locke Foundation, also included testimony that Easley had a private Time Warner email account that was sometimes used for state business. His user name was Regnad Kcin, or “Nick Danger” backward. Nick Danger was a character from Firesign Theater, a 60s radio comedy troupe. Danger was a bumbling private eye who, in one skit, reads his name backward through his glass office door: “Regnad Kcin.”
Some senior staffers knew about the account and even sent messages to it, but none of those emails were turned over in response to public records requests. Easley told reporters in 2008 he did not use his personal email for any substantive state business.
Lots more detail in the N&O story here.
Why it matters
Well, first, there’s Easley’s odd sense of humor. Kidding. In all seriousness, the first issue is the First Amendment. Emails about state business by state workers, even the governor, are public records, and systematically deleting them isn’t legal. And they’re still public record even if they’re sent via a private account. Easley himself paid lip service to that idea in 2008.
But perhaps the more pressing issue here is what was IN those Regnad Kcin emails, and whether they were turned over to state and federal authorities investigating Easley’s campaign finances. That investigation led to a 51-count indictment last month against his former legal aide Ruffin Poole. Easley testified at the State Elections Board he hasn’t done anything wrong and wasn’t aware of any illegal activities by his office or campaign staff. Would the Regnad Kcin emails prove otherwise? That’s the BIG question, and one we may have to wait on federal investigators to answer.
Also of interest
The State Elections Board has ruled former Rep Cary Allred (R-Alamance) cannot use campaign funds to pay for his hefty speeding ticket. According to Burlington Times-News’s Robert Boyer, Allred didn’t want the paper to report on the ruling, complaining, “I’ve been treated worse than Edward Kennedy was when he killed Mary Jo Kopechne.” Sigh. More hyperbole here.
And both of our US Senators have been living pretty well on lobbyists’ dimes recently. Greensboro’s Mark Binker has the scoop on both Kay Hagan and Richard Burr.
Comments? Drop me a line.
