By Lee Devito
Former Flint Mayor Karen Weaver (click here) responded to Metro Times' recent cover story about the city's water crisis, and commended reporters Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize of independent news outlet Status Coup for helping to continue to draw awareness to the issue.
Status Coup, which reported the story co-published by Metro Times and The Intercept last month, interviewed Weaver during a visit to Flint on Thursday, where the former mayor, who served from 2015 to 2019, took aim at... well, everyone —including the media, former Governor Snyder, and even current Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
"You know, I always talk about 'how to get away with murder?'" she said. "Ask Snyder, and ask Nessel. They're all helping him do it."
When asked about the article, Weaver said, "I wasn't surprised because this whole thing has been a cover-up from the very beginning, and that's what we have been talking about — those that those of us that have been ... yelling and screaming and trying to keep the story alive from the very beginning."
The article reported evidence that the phones of Snyder's top health officials and aides had been wiped just before a criminal investigation was launched. It also reported on a letter drafted by Schuette accusing Snyder of interfering with his office's investigation by launching "sham" investigations of his own....
Karen Weaver was in the middle of the crisis in Flint. She knows it better than most legislators or law enforcement people. If she states there are things amiss with the prosecution of Rick Snyder it should be reviewed yet again with her assistance. I think she is spot on with the issue of erased cell phones. NO ONE HAS BEEN CHARGED that I am aware of for TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE.
July 28, 2021
New York - On Wednesday, (click here) the Democratically-controlled House Oversight Committee responded to a bombshell report in The Intercept by Status Coup's Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize on the Flint water crisis that revealed phones belonging to top officials in former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's administration were erased and/or altered—with key communications and data from the 2014-2015 period Flint received toxic drinking water from the Flint River gone when criminal investigators obtained the phones....
These illegal acts are noted by people concerned about the ease with which the cover-up occurred. There is a far more casual approach to these issues in the year 2021. There needs to be ACCOUNTABILITY and it is not pursued from what I can tell. This can't simply be noticed and then allowed without penalty. The former Governor was responsible in maintaining the integrity of the facts within those phone records. Those records were State of Michigan property. The current Attorney General needs to do more than shrug her shoulders about tampered evidence and bring charges for these illegal acts.
