On The Anniversary of Rick Sheehy’s Resignation, Tell Me Why Ricketts Helped Cover Up Kintner’s Cybersex Scandal?
Late July 2016 it was revealed that Senator Bill Kintner used his State of Nebraska laptop to engage in cybersex with a foreign stranger her met online.
Ricketts released a statement admitting that he had in fact known about Kintner’s situation the previous summer, circa July 2015, and has made the claim that he told him to resign at the time and stood by that request until Kintner resigned last week.
At the time, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Vince Powers called on Ricketts to reveal what he knew and when he knew. Ricketts has not responded to these requests.
This was a very different situation than we saw, 4 years ago today.
On February 2nd, 2013, 4 years ago today, it was revealed that Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy had used his State of Nebraska issued cellphone to carry on an inappropriate relationship. Within 24 hours of Governor Dave Heineman finding out about this, Sheehy had resigned.
I have to tell you, writing this blog pains me greatly. I have no affection for Dave Heineman. First serving as Lieutenant Governor, Heineman became Governor in January 2005 when Johanns resigned to become Secretary of Agriculture. Heineman won the 2006 Republican primary by bashing immigrant students and went on to be the main antagonist for all Democrats in this state throughout the duration of his time as Governor. He was reckless and indifferent with regards to BSDC, HHS and our prison system. To get a sense of my feelings about Dave Heineman, google “Hunter S. Thompson Quotes About Richard Nixon” and you get a pretty good idea.
That being said, 4 years ago Heineman took out the trash. He compelled Sheehy to resign immediately and got back to the business of governing. For that, as painful as it is to say, I give him credit. He did what Ricketts SHOULD have done in 2015 when he found out about Kintner.
Ricketts has made the excuse that he wasn’t able to speak out because of the ongoing investigation. That is baloney, the only person forbidden by law from speaking publicly was the individual filing the complaint. Nebraska law states…
49–14,124.01. Preliminary investigation; confidential; exception. All commission proceedings and records relating to preliminary investigations shall be confidential until a final determination is made by the commission unless the person alleged to be in violation of the Nebraska Political Accountability and Disclosure Act requests that the proceedings be public.
Only the proceedings were confidential, Ricketts was under no obligation to remain silent about what he knew. He could have done so without mentioning the A & D proceedings. Ricketts didn’t file the complaint with Accountability and Disclosure, so none of this applied to him.
The most troubling part about all of this is why Ricketts continued treating Kintner like a NEGOP leader and member of the legislature in good standing through the entirety of all this?
In May 2016 the NEGOP convention Ricketts had no problems publicly shaming a dozen Republican state senators who didn’t vote the way he wanted, on the death penalty repeal and other issues. Ricketts also had no problems recruiting and bankrolling conservative candidates to defeat moderate Republican State Senators Al Davis, Jerry Johnson, and Les Seiler. Ricketts spent over $1 million on the 2016 elections in Nebraska.
Ricketts backed a slate of delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer that had Kintner’s name on it.
The LeavenworthSt.com blog wrote a great piece shredding Goveror Ricketts’ story. So far there are 3 accounts of what happened between Ricketts and Kintner in July 2015…
Ricketts’ Story Version 1 from Lincoln Journal Star
Ricketts said the Nebraska State Patrol told the governor’s office in July 2015 that Kintner had asked for an investigation into a computer-related crime he said was committed against him.
“That’s when I said the State Patrol needs to do a full investigation,” Ricketts said at a Monday morning news conference called on a different topic.
When it appeared that Kintner used his state computer for sexually explicit reasons, Ricketts told him he ought to resign, he said.
“Obviously, he didn’t resign,” he said.
Ricketts’ Story Version 2 from Lincoln Journal Star
In a statement issued Friday, Ricketts said he had phoned Kintner last summer and urged him to resign “if the allegations were true.”
Ricketts’ Story Version 3 from Omaha World-Herald
Gov. Pete Ricketts said Monday that he never asked Kintner whether the video allegations were true. Instead, the governor told Kintner in July 2015 that if the allegations were true, he should resign, the governor said again Monday.
“He didn’t really respond one way or another, and obviously he didn’t resign,” Ricketts said.
None of this really adds up. Ricketts has direct authority over the Nebraska State Patrol, which we saw when he deployed 11 of them to North Dakota to protect the Dakota Access pipeline. Many speculate that when Kintner was blackmailed he went to the Nebraska State Patrol as opposed to any number of other law enforcement agencies because he and his good buddy the Governor would have the best chance of covering this all up with his close ties to the State Patrol, and in fact they were successful for a year.
The best case scenario for Ricketts is that he did truly work to persuade Kintner to resign for over a year before this became public, and he was just as big of a dismal failure at that as he was reforming HHS, our prison system, property tax reform, and all of his other 2014 campaign promises. Nothing in Ricketts’ behavior from July 2015 to July 2016 indicates he thought this would ever come out. Ricketts selected Kintner over hundreds of thousands of other Republicans in Nebraska to represent the NEGOP in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention. Kintner never really slowed down on his outrageous statements during the time Ricketts had allegedly told him to resign. Ricketts had Kintner in the legislature to continue shaming moderate Republicans and help carry water for his radical agenda.
Last week I was a guest on the Chris Baker Radio Show on KFAB and was discussing the Kintner resignation and the Ricketts’ cover up of it. At the 30:15 mark, NEGOP Chair Dan Welch called in very upset, repeating the same false claim that Ricketts was under some sort of gag-order because of the investigation that he couldn’t speak publicly about the cybersex scandal. I didn’t get the chance to really question Mr. Welch, but I’d be curious as to what he’d say as to when he knew about the Kintner fiasco, and why Governor Ricketts had him on the slate to be a RNC delegate having known what he knew. I have invited Dan to come back on the show and discuss this with me anytime.
