The revolting legacy of the pedophile trafficker Jeffrey Epstein continues to unmask the obstacles to finding truth.
Friday brought the release of more documents in the possession of the Department of Justice. The resistance to public disclosure has been wickedly unrelenting, overcome only by an act of Congress last year.
The Epstein saga holds many lessons. How hard it is for a victim of crime to be believed when the perpetrator is rich and connected is the most obvious. The battle over millions of Epstein documents is a common one magnified: the intractable resistance to allowing the public to see how the people’s business is conducted.
In 1975, Ella Grasso in her first year as governor, championed the passage of the nation’s most comprehensive Freedom of Information Act. It became a model for other states in a reforming mood after the Watergate scandal and, later, for emerging democracies around the world. As others near and far looked upon Connecticut’s commitment to open government, a decades long struggle began and continues here in the Constitution State to sustain the law that served as a beacon for millions.
In Connecticut, officials in local governments, state agencies, and the legislature never tire of inventing subtle and blunt methods to undermine your right to see how policies are adopted or strangled, decisions are made or avoided, people promoted or fired, and money spent.
We have enjoyed many victories over the forces of darkness. Our winning streak, not unbroken, has been impressive and hard won. Every person in Connecticut benefits from the Freedom of Information Act, even the ones who resist it. For the past 35 years, Colleen Murphy has been in the front ranks of protecting our right to know, many of those years as the shrewd general of the ragtag good government army. Colleen retires this month as the executive director and general counsel of the Freedom of Information Commission, hanging up her battle gear.
Every year someone wants to take a chunk out of the Freedom of Information Act. Often, it’s a person or organization that has lost a decision by the commission that enforces the law and wants the legislature to upend the result. It is not unusual for public employee unions to seek exemptions from the law through the legislature. Colleen developed a remarkable eye for identifying trouble and alerting others to it.
There is no good government caucus. There are no natural allies determined to protect your right to know what your government is doing. When I was a legislator long ago in the House and the Senate and in the minority and the majority, supporters of the law found each other. In my first term in the House, there were four of us out 187 members of the General Assembly who had opposed every bad idea to damage the FOIA, two Republicans and two Democrats, three House members and one senator. We acted by disposition, not tribal membership.
The obstacles are mutable and insidious. During the many years that the state’s finances were a mess, some legislative leaders saw money troubles as an excuse to weaken the FOIC. One scheme that undermined the agency’s independence was enacted. Colleen in the service of good was wilier than the friends of secrecy and found a way to thwart their plan.
In the Rell administration, two critical emails disappeared after a request by The Courant’s Jon Lender had been reviewed by the governor’s legal counsel but before the documents handed over to the paper’s prize-winning investigative reporter. He knew the governor’s office’s disclosure of documents was incomplete because someone with knowledge and rectitude realized what had happened and told him. The governor’s office offered no explanation for its skullduggery.
Technology presents new ways to subvert the public interest. The double delete became popular with early state email systems. If a user deleted a message and then deleted the trash, it would not be included when messages were backed up overnight. When that became harder to do, shadow email networks were created among state officials. They would use private email accounts to communicate, making it more difficult to obtain complete disclosure of documents.
Over many years of requests for emails under the FOIA only once have I seen someone send a message apologizing for not using their government email account to conduct public business. That was Luke Bronin when he worked then-Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s office. Malloy’s administration was thick with shadow email networks that sought to subvert the law. Bronin refused to become a member.
Last year, we witnessed the dismal spectacle of our most powerful utility regulator, Marissa Gillett, reluctantly admitting that her mobile phone was automatically deleting documents related to her duties as chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Text messages that The Courant’s Ed Mahony obtained under the FOIA suggested Gillett was involved with two legislators in the writing of a nutty op-ed accusing Eversource of rigging an international financial ratings agency.
The texts also suggested PURA chief of staff Theresa Govert had a draft of the opinion piece. After months of obfuscation, drama, and missing documents, Gillett resigned. Govert followed her out of the agency but was given a cushy landing by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration with a vaguely described $123,000 a year sinecure exempt from the merit system in the Department of Administrative Services.
The temptations to subvert our open records act are everywhere and often not resisted. That we still enjoy the benefits of Ella Grasso’s most significant enduring achievement is due in large measure to Colleen Murphy. As people around the world have thrown off their shackles and their celebrations end, they need to create ways to preserve their new freedom. They have often called on Colleen to show them the way forward. We are served by many talented and accomplished state employees. Few can claim a legacy that extends around the globe. Colleen won’t, so I’m doing it for her.
Reach Kevin F. Rennie at [email protected]