Hmmm: Prosecutors Looking Into Helen Kelley-Jones' Phone Records to Determine Who She Was Talking With at Time of Dirt-Digging

Surprising this guy didn't get the memo that there was to be a whitewash.

"I'm looking at calls made and received by a number of people," [Franklin County prosecutor Ron] O'Brien said yesterday.

Jones-Kelley, a Democrat, said that no one from Barack Obama's campaign or Gov. Ted Strickland's administration instructed her to make the check of child-support, welfare and unemployment records.

"She was contacted by no one with any political requests whatsoever," said H. Ritchey Hollenbaugh, Jones-Kelley's attorney.

She and Hollenbaugh met yesterday with O'Brien and have been cooperating in the probe.

"He asked Helen to provide information with respect to certain phone numbers, which she has done," Hollenbaugh said.

O'Brien, a Republican, said he has made no decision about whether criminal charges will be filed.

State phone records obtained by The Dispatch showed that Jones-Kelley made few calls from her desk phone, and none appeared suspicious.

Officials at the Department of Job and Family Services said she did not have a state-issued cell phone or BlackBerry. She did, however, have a personal BlackBerry to which her state e-mail was synched, and she apparently used that phone for most of her calls.

Jones-Kelley hardly needed to be told by Obama to dig dirt on Joe the Plumber. I'm sure she did that all on her own. It could be interesting who she called immediately after the violation of privacy, though.

By the way: I have heard no follow-up on the records dug through at the office of the Attorney General. Did that come to some resolution I missed?

posted by Ace at 06:51 PM

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