While much of the national media has not caught on, here at The Moderate Voice we have been following the saga of Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson and the troubles plaguing her office. Following numerous charges of questionable behavior and the blocking of union formation, whistleblower and Deputy Attorny General Lawson has been fired. As we find at Lady’s Logic, (our point source for this story from a local level) Ms. Swanson has quickly swooped in to get some answers, and done so by appointing someone herself to investigate her office. The story only becomes more convoluted from there.

I mentioned yesterday, that the Mengler Report (on AG Swanson’s office) was released. For those that have been in a cave for the last few months, AG Lori Swanson hired Thomas Mengler (Dean of Law at St. Thomas University) to investigate the charges of ethics violations in the AG office that had been raised by Amy Lawler (among others).

The Star Tribune touts the report saying it had “cleared” AG Swanson of the charges, but is that really the case? If you actually read the report, the answer is not nearly as clear as the Star Tribune would have you believe. The 3 page Executive Summary goes to great pains to specify that the report only covers one of the charges raised by Ms. Lawler. On that one charge, Mr. Mengler states that he could not find proof that there were ethical violations and that Ms. Lawler was wrong for disclosing “confidential communications” and doing so “diminished the ability of the AG’s office” to represent the people of Minnesota . However, it is how Mr. Mengler addresses the other issues that I find to be of greatest interest. Mr. Megler goes out of his way to indicate that he is offering no opinion on any other charges that have been raised by Ms. Lawler and others…that these other charges were “beyond the parameters” of his investigation.

When I read this, my first thought was of an old Cheech and Chong movie. (“Eeets nawt mah job, mon!”) Somehow, the idea of a public official appointing the very person who will investigate their own activities raises issues in my mind. And when they come back with a report saying that a large swath of the concerns are “outside the scope of their investigation” even more red flags pop up. Feel free to click through the link above and then check out several recent posts from Ladies Logic to catch up on this interesting story.