Jo Mannies of the Post busted the political story of the week by following an email trail between Ed Martin, chief of staff for Gov. Matt Blunt, and his colleagues in the anti-choice, pro-ignorance movement that opposes abortion rights and sex education. Having obtained some sensitive emails that made it clear that Martin was working very cozily with right-wing activists, Mannies requested the rest of the correspondence – and Martin told her he had deleted it all.
Martin initially made the patently ridiculous claim that emails aren’t public records – and then apparently quit talking to Mannies about this sensitive subject. Perhaps the lawyer in him realized this issue will be headed to court one day.
The EYE decided to try to get a quote. Martin as usual let his cell phone go to voice mail and then passed the message to spokesperson Jessica Robinson, who seems to have cooked up a less obviously ridiculous comment:
“Emails can be a public record if they meet the other criteria of a public record. There is no statute or case that requires the state to retain all emails as a public record.” Rather than dwell on the issue of the public’s right to know what its elected officials are doing, saying and writing on taxpayer time, Robinson returned to the favorite Missouri GOP pastime of making it all about Jay, Blunt’s Democratic challenger, Attorney General Jeremiah “Jay” Nixon: “Attorney General Nixon and his office lost all credibility on this issue when they asserted that they have never deleted emails in the last three years.”
We’ll see this one in court. And, the EYE predicts, we will see Ed Martin suddenly hanging onto more of his emails, just in case somebody asks to see them. It’s the law, and he knows it.