50 Shades of Graft: Sex-Smitten Luv-Guv Caught With Hands In Taxpayer Cookie Jar For Gubernatorial GalPal

1. Democratic leaders are telling him to resign.

Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek met with Gov. John Kitzhaber on Thursday morning and told him it was time to resign.

...

"He was upset," Courtney said. "He was defiant. He was struggling."

"This thing is evolving by the second."

Courtney said that he and Kotek have been trying to get security for Secretary of State Kate Brown, who would become governor if Kitzhaber were to step down.

Why all this? Because...

2. Kitzhaber's government has been showering sweet taxpayer kisses on his live-in hoochie-mama.

The inquiries stem from contracting work that Ms. Hayes, 47, a clean-energy consultant, performed and was paid for while living with the governor and advising him on clean-energy issues. Those issues have long been a priority of Mr. Kitzhaber’s administration, but now they are bound up in, and perhaps undermined by, questions of whether love and politics got too cozy in the governor’s mansion.

But is this dramatic? Sure it's dramatic, because...

3. The governor seems High on Sex Goofballs because he's simultaneously telling is Secretary of State (who would take over for him should he resign) that he's not resigning, but also, that he'd like to set up "a transition."

But he's probably innocent, right? I mean, a man in love cannot be guilty of a crime, can he?

Well, he can. That crime is called obstruction of justice. Because...

4. Governor John Kitzhaber's Office Sought to Destroy Thousands of His Emails

ov. John Kitzhaber’s office last week requested state officials destroy thousands of records in the governor’s personal email accounts, according to records obtained by WW and 101.9 KINK/FM News 101 KXL.

The request came as investigations into allegations of influence-peddling involving Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes were intensifying.

Records show the request to destroy Kitzhaber’s emails came from Jan Murdock, Kitzhaber's executive assistant. She wanted all emails from Kitzhaber's personal email accounts removed from state servers.

The request from Murdock was described in a Feb. 5 email. "Governor’s office wants anything that is in the email account [Kitzhaber’s account] removed from archive," wrote Tracy Osburn, a field technician in the DAS Technology Support Center, wrote in the email obtained by WW and 101.9 KINK/FM News 101 KXL.

Well, that's only 4 of the 50 shades, but we're still in early days.

Whoah:

5. The plot, like his manhood, thickens.

posted by Ace at 05:41 PM

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