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GOVERNOR’S OFFICE WAS LARGELY IN DARK ABOUT HIS WHEREABOUTS DURING ARGENTINA TRIP
Freedom of Information requests returned to The State newspaper Monday detailed five days of chaos in Mark Sanford’s office last month when the governor disappeared to visit his Argentine mistress.
More than 600 pages of emails and phone records confirmed what many had suspected — Sanford’s staff was nearly as clueless as to the governor’s whereabouts from June 18-24 as the general public. Well, mostly.
Sanford’s chief of staff, Scott English, called the governor’s cell phones 15 times during the governor’s secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover last month. But the governor never picked up.
Meanwhile Sanford’s communications director, Joel Sawyer, worked to minimize the fact the governor had been out of touch with his staff for about four days.
Records released Monday show Sawyer juggled e-mails and media calls from around the nation, giving a consistent message that was later proven to be untrue.
Those records also show Sanford declined a dinner invitation from a company looking to expand its business in South Carolina because Sanford planned to be in Argentina that day.
Sanford has since said he intentionally misled Sawyer and other staff members to believe he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was really with his Argentine lover.
First, Sawyer said the governor was taking a much needed break after the legislative session.
Later, after media pressure intensified, Sawyer refined the message: “The governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail,” he repeatedly wrote to reporters June 22. “I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting to see if a more definitive idea of what part of the Trail he was on before we did so.” [...]
Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Lexington, and a Sanford supporter, sent an e-mail June 22 to Sawyer, saying he planned to attend a question-and-answer-session with state Sen. Jake Knotts, R-Lexington, who first pointed out the governor was missing.
Ballentine said Knotts will “sure make issue with (the governor’s absence.”
“Pop him back if you can,” Sawyer responded. [...]
The e-mails also show very little communication between staff members as to Sanford’s whereabouts.
I give the Sanford team a whole lot of credit. Rule No. 1 of working in a government office is to never email anything or make a call on a public phone that you don’t want people to know about.
As obvious as this would seem, given that almost anything is subject to the FOIA, some government employees (cough, cough) still have trouble understanding this concept.
So kudos to English, Sawyer and the rest for keeping the truly frantic or damning emails “off the radar”… well, except that whole “hiking the Appalachian Trail” thing.
Also interesting in The State’s FOIA documents was one in which Sanford turned down a June 24 economic development meeting with representatives from a company looking to expand its state operation and a June 25 event for a plant expansion by a South Carolina business. Whoops.
So you’re saying civil servants need only lie just a little better, using a variety of tools in which to do so? Good grief.
YOU SAID
So kudos to English, Sawyer and the rest for keeping the truly frantic or damning emails “off the radar”… well, except that whole “hiking the Appalachian Trail” thing.
Adam, please do not accept that your state’s leader and his office staff have lied. It’s very bad and unfair to every single citizen of this state to accept that.
If you didn’t show up for work, gave everyone cause to be alarmed, then no one still knew what you were up to while you were gone,
YOU WOULD BE FIRED FROM YOUR JOB IMMEDIATELY>
WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE IN THIS STATE>
ARE WE SURE THE GOVERNOR HAD AN AFFAIR< AFTER ALL<
NO excuses.
Joel Sawyer said he did not know if Sanford received calls on his personal phone.
Chief of Staff Scott English was trying to reach the governor.
The documents show 14 calls to Sanford’s personal and state-issued cell phones from English from June 20 through June 22, the day reporters started asking for the governor’s whereabouts.
They also show that no calls were sent or received by Sanford’s state-issued cell phone from June 18, when he departed from Atlanta to Argentina, until June 25, a day after his tearful public confession of his affair with Maria Belen Chapur. Sawyer said he did not know if Sanford received calls on his personal phone.
Sanford’s staff apparently had no idea of the governor’s real location, even when contact was made with their boss a day before he returned.
The governor has said he could have been reached, but the newly released documents don’t prove it.
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/jul/15/missed_meetings_spotlight89268/
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I agree with SpaceyG.
Why would you want people getting a paycheck from the taxpayers to lie and dissemble?
Go read some Watergate history. Halderman and Erlichman were NOT the heroes.
SpaceyG – I thought the sarcasm was pretty obvious, especially given that they did a TERRIBLE job of covering their bases.
NEW PHOTO: “Argentine Maria Belen Chapur walks to her apartment after shopping at a supermarket in Buenos Aires, Tuesday, July 14, 2009.”
“Sanford also was MIA in 2008″
“S.C. Department of Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor attempted to track down Gov. Mark Sanford via e-mail and cell phone in June of 2008 — the day the governor has admitted to seeing his Argentine lover as their relationship turned physical.”
“Need contact number for (Sanford) ASAP,” Taylor wrote in an e-mail to a Sanford staffer at 7:19 p.m. on June 28, 2008.
NEW PHOTO:
http://www.thestate.com/154/story/865772.html?storylink=omni_popular
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There’s a “gate” story here, but you know how it is in SC…. we cannot tell the truth if our life depended on it….
LIES LIES LIES, just like Jake Knotts said.
Check out this information about Mark’s ” family”- C Street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dox4jdW4UyQ
Please understand our Governor does believe and practice this.
He made me an example in a most obvious and tragic way.
It’s going to be addressed Mark.