NIXONIAN MACHINATIONS …
S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson has removed the state’s first circuit solicitor from an investigation into corruption among members of the S.C. General Assembly – evidencing a shocking contempt for the public trust as well as a sudden reversal of the trust he recently placed in this prosecutor.
Wilson’s move is also of dubious legality seeing as he has previously recused himself from the State House investigation due to several undisclosed conflicts of interest.
How can he now remove the prosecutor he handed the case to?
“Don’t see how he has the authority to remove the special prosecutor after he abdicated his authority by appointing a special prosecutor,” a source close to the case told us.
Nonetheless, Wilson removed solicitor David Pascoe on Monday for what he claimed was an “obvious abuse of power” in the ongoing investigation of state lawmakers. News of Pascoe’s dismissal came just hours after it was revealed that Wilson had obstructed the empaneling of a grand jury that seemed likely to indict several sitting members of the S.C. General Assembly.
Among the lawmakers reportedly under the probe’s microscope? Those in Wilson’s immediate political orbit (a.k.a. the political stable of neo-Confederate consultant Richard Quinn).
Wilson recused himself from this joint federal-state probe last summer, but four months ago his office quietly released an advisory opinion (obtained exclusively by this website) in which he advised Pascoe that several angles of potential prosecution against sitting members of the S.C. General Assembly were unlikely to yield indictments.
That move finally began to draw the mainstream media’s attention to Wilson’s treachery.
This website praised Wilson’s early work on the anti-corruption front, but around this time last year we began to notice a curious lack of forward motion in “the probe.”
Accordingly, we criticized Wilson for donning the “white hat” – but then failing to follow through.
“When Wilson put (the white hat) on, he created an expectation,” we wrote. “And by vowing to take on the system behind the corrupt politicians, he upped the ante. He branded himself as a modern-day Eliot Ness – and reaped the benefits of that image in the press.”
Now he’s actively enabling corruption … which is why we are calling on him to either resign his office or be removed.
11 comments
mental incapacitation..?
Why would anybody “praise” Alan Wilson for anything?
He’s the most totally despicable person in state government.(and that’s saying something!)
Now now let us give credit to all the other vile creatures wearing human masks in our beloved state government!
This is the same attorney general who does not respond to FOIA requests–in and of itself a violation of the law. Makes one wonder what there is to hide.
Where art thou Mr Nettles?
Sorry, he’s on the take too.
WATERGATE MEMORIES
Richard M. Nixon tried the same thing. They called it the “Saturday Night Massacre.” I refer to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s dismissal of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal.
Richardson refused to fire Cox under orders from Nixon and resigned followed by Ruckelshaus. I believe it was Robert Bork who finally did the dirty work.
What will Gov. Haley do? What will SLED Chief Mark Keel do?
Personal Note: I was in Washington DC, with the Boy Scouts, maybe even in the Capitol building the day Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the secret tapes during the House Watergate Hearings. It was Cox’s subpoena of those tapes that precipitated his firing. I had no idea until weeks later.
I hear Pogo has some secret tapes involving Tango, some peanut oil and a drop cloth.
Go eat dinner with the family Rocky.They think you actually work all day.
And a dachshund.
I am praying for you sir.Haley’s demise has destroyed your sense of being.