By fitsnews – May 1, 2012
DO AS SHE SAYS, NOT AS SHE DOES … AGAIN
Last year, two of S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley’s top staffers obtained the confidential medical records of one of the state’s top economic development recruiters. After receiving this information, they provided these records to the S.C. Department of Commerce – which later used the confidential information contained therein as a reason to terminate the employee.
(To read our exhaustive report on this scandal, click here).
So … what happened to Haley’s chief of staff, Tim Pearson, and chief legal counselor, Swati Patel – the two employees who improperly obtained and disseminated this information?
Absolutely nothing …
Now that a Democratic operative has been busted sharing confidential information, though … Haley suddenly wants blood vengeance.
“I told (S.C. State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel) to slam him to the wall,” Haley said Monday, as reported by Gina Smith of The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper. “Do whatever we can to make an example of him.”
Um … really?
Haley added that “if (agencies) have a supervisor who has this happen on their watch, they will get fired.”
Aside from the damage that Haley has just done to any criminal case against the perpetrator of this crime, once again we are confronted with a situation in which the governor wants a different set of rules to apply to her administration.
We have no problem with slamming the Democratic operative who improperly obtained nearly a quarter million Medicaid records “to the wall,” as the governor suggests, but shouldn’t the same standard apply to employees in her office?
Also … wouldn’t Haley (as the only supervisor of her chief of staff) be subject to termination based on her new rule?
Whether it’s one confidential record or 228,435 – and whether that information is being abused for commercial or political purposes – a wrong is a wrong. Haley needs to either apply this rule uniformly across her cabinet or stop the political grandstanding.
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