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GROWING LIST OF PEOPLE THINK SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE LIED; EXTENSIVE POST DETAILING DECEPTION COMES TOMORROW
By Michael B. Brodkorb | November 22, 2007
I'll have an extensive post tomorrow detailing what I believe to be a pattern of deception from Secretary of State Ritchie and his office surrounding allegations that Ritchie used his official office to fund his political machine. There is a growing list of people who think Ritchie has lied.
House Republican Leader Marty Seifert thinks Ritchie has lied:
"'It's unethical,' Seifert told the Independent, adding 'this guy got caught in a lie. The culture of corruption looks pretty bad. Now that Ritchie basically admitted lying, I don’t know how we can't have an investigation.'" Source: Marshall Independent, November 22, 2007
Representative Laura Brod said there has been a "very serious disregard for the truth":
"There is some specific and very serious disregard for the truth in some form." Source: Marshall Independent, November 22, 2007
Even a blogger for the liberal blog Minnesota Monitor thinks Ritchie lied:
"Which leaves the secondary offense, the lie. As so often happens in politics, Ritchie compounded a relatively minor lapse in judgment by lying about it." Source: Minnesota Monitor, November 21, 2007
I believe Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has lied to legislators, the media and Minnesotans. Please check back to Minnesota Democrats Exposed tomorrow for more information on this developing story.
Topics: Uncategorized | 16 Comments »
16 Responses to “GROWING LIST OF PEOPLE THINK SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE LIED; EXTENSIVE POST DETAILING DECEPTION COMES TOMORROW”
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November 23rd, 2007 at 1:58 am
Even though Mark Ritchie lied, Brian Melendez is spinning it to say that the GOP is only doing this because they’re upset that Ritchie defeated Mary Kiffmeyer. As I said here, we’re going after Ritchie because he lied. Nothing more complicated than that.
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:43 am
I’m a Democrat and I have to admit this looks really bad.
I supported Christian Sande for Sec’y of State and supported him b/c I thought Ritchie was just too partisan.
It’s too bad my worst fears have been realized.
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 am
Why not link directly to the Min Mon article and name the author – who is former editorial writer Jim Boyd?
I think there are a number of democrats who are having some remorse over supporting Ritchie over Sande.
Gary – ofcourse, Republicans are going to exploit this lie from Ritchie – just as Democrats would do the opposite should the opportunity come to them. And ofcourse, Brian Melendez is trying to minimize this.
I’d be very curious to know what Bert Black would say about this.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Gary:
I have been commenting a lot about this because this is more than just lieing!
* I’m a public employee that can be fired for misusing my access to the data base, even data that can be sold to the public. Ritchie stole data which it looks like he should’ve paid for. He took data which might be confidential! That by itself makes it more than a lie!
* We have an investigation that is taking place at taxpayer expense right now because Mark Ritchie didn’t come clean. Since Mark Ritchie failed to come clean and since Mark Ritchie said he was going to take full responsibility he should be paying for the costs of this investigation!
* Mark Ritchie is in this position because he claimed he was going to make the office nonpartisian, he was going to cleanup the office, etc. We’re going after Ritchie since he lied to the entire state about how he was going to conduct the office if elected. If voters had been told what he was going to be doing Mark K would’ve won in a landslide.
* And lets not forgot in an effort to coverup for this the Secretary of State’s Office has in effect given false information to people who were checking into this. Mike has documented the Republican Party being lied to not to mention two lawmakers.
So Gary this is more than just lieing! If Mark Ritchie will take full responsibility for his action he would’ve already resigned!!!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
Hey Mike:
Sean at MN Publis seems very silent. While he kept saying you didn’t prove that Ritchie has lied he hasn’t at all for about 36 plus hours now to the post I made that I said he owed six dollars. If he is so sure Ritchie did nothing wrong shouldn’t I be attacked by him the way you were.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
The whole Sec’y of State position is kind of goofy. In Wisc, a guy from Illinois moved to the state, change the spelling of his last name so people would think he was part of the LaFollette family (in the 1970’s, that name was still relavent) and has been in office since, using it as a podium to promote his very liberal causes.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 am
And there is difference between being stupid and lieing. If he made a dumb mistake, fine. Come clean about it and move on. If he engaged in deceit, huge difference.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:47 am
I don’t see how Ritchie can survive this with any level of credibility. If he were a legislator or Governor or something else, this would be a whole different situation. However, his mst important function is fair elections and he compromised that for his own personal campaign by using public resources to create a fundraising list for himself.
Then he lied about it (the day before Thanksgiving).
This is like a doctor purposely diagnosing the wrong disease or an auditor cooking the books. Even if, for some reason, the wrongful act could be forgiven (professionally, we can all forgive personally), the person could never ever be trusted again in that particular role. This is the case with Ritchie and election administration.
And then he lied about it (the day before Thanksgiving).
This is terribly sad. Someone else needs to be in that office before Minnesotans cast another ballot.
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
What Would Christian Sande Do?
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 am
Steph, you hit the nail right on the head with that comment. Ritchie can never again be trusted with the election component of the office of the Secretary of State (pretty big component huh?).
But you, and everyone else here are still missing a huge component (perhaps the biggest component) of this whole Entenza-like scandal.
Everything that Ritchie has admitted he lied about is just the tip of the iceberg.
We know for sure that there are a few other lists Ritchie took from the taxpayers to try to fund his campaign. But he didn’t address any of that in the admission of his lie.
So to start with, he has to tell us about “Safe at Home” and he has to tell us about soliciting (with his political campaign) other government employees who have privately complained.
Then, he has to tell the public all the other lists he stole from, and all of the other public employees he solicited.
And what else? A person with these sort of character flaws has a propensity to repeat the pattern.
Keep digging MDE, I would be shocked if there isn’t more too this.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
[...] « GROWING LIST OF PEOPLE THINK SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE LIED; EXTENSIVE POST DETAILING DECEPTION COMES TOMORROW | Home [...]
November 27th, 2007 at 12:33 am
[...] By Michael B. Brodkorb “‘It’s unethical,’ Seifert told the Independent, adding ‘this guy got caught in a lie. The culture of corruption looks pretty bad. Now that Ritchie basically admitted lying, I don’t know how we can’t have an investigation. … http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2007/11/22/growing-list-of-people-think-secretary-of-state-ritchie-lied-extensive-post-detailing-deception-comes-tomorrow/ Minnesota Democrats Exposed http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI Leave a comment Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> [...]
January 7th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[...] Ritchie promised to be a non-partisan secretary of state, but was caught lying in the growing scandal surrounding allegations that he used his official office to fund his political machine. Legislators, conservative bloggers, liberal bloggers, Republicans and Democrats all believe that Secretary of State Ritchie lied. [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 2:11 am
[...] Alright. Simple declaratory statement. Relatively innocuous. MNPublius has heard these rumors as well. Ritchie promised to be a non-partisan secretary of state, but was caught lying in the growing scandal surrounding allegations that he used his official office to fund his political machine. Legislators, conservative bloggers, liberal bloggers, Republicans and Democrats all believe that Secretary of State Ritchie lied. [...]
January 8th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
[...] By Michael B. Brodkorb | January 8, 2008 I called DFL Party Brian Melendez's move to have a press conference celebrate the report from the Minnesota Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles that reported that Ritchie "did not fulfill his legal obligations" in answering Nobles' questions my "bonehead play of the day." While I think it was still a "bonehead" move to have the press conference, Melendez's smackdown with MN GOP Chairman Ron Carey was priceless. Carey and Melendez should do this more often as it makes for great political theater. As I am a proud partisan Republican, I must complement MN GOP Chairman Carey for showing up at the DFL event and reminding the DFL and reporters that Nobles reported Ritchie "did not fulfill his legal obligations" in answering Nobles' questions. But I'm still wondering why the DFL is endzone dancing. Is being labeled a liar and someone who doesn't "fulfill his legal obligations" something to celebrate? [...]
February 29th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.