From today's Bellingham Herald comes this story of stunning incompetence by the State Attorney General's office. One that will cost us taxpayers millions of dollars. A picture first:
From the first story:
WA AG’s Office admits to withholding 100,000 additional records in lawsuit
Days after a King County Superior Court Judge sanctioned the Washington State Attorney General’s Office and the state Department of Social and Health Services for withholding nearly 11,000 records in a lawsuit involving a developmentally disabled adult, the AG’s office has admitted that it has found 100,000 more pages pertaining to that same case that were not previously turned over. A Discovery Master has now been appointed to manage discovery issues in the case, according to court filings from April 11 signed by King County Superior Court Judge Michael K. Ryan.
And the Discovery Master?
The Discovery Master is appointed at the expense of the AG’s Office and DSHS at a billable rate of $500 per hour, and will be required to review all briefings and all discovery produced by DSHS. The appointee will take “all necessary steps to determine whether all written discovery requests” from the defendants “have been thoroughly and completely answered and all responsive documents have been produced” including to determine if DSHS’s search for responsive documents was sufficient, to determine if counsel for DSHS personally assisted and provided guidance to the agency to ensure the documents were provided in a timely manner, and to review DSHS’s privilege log, among other things.
DSHS and/or the AG’s Office are required to pay the funds monthly, which comes from taxpayer money, and within 30 days of the invoice from the Discovery Master, the judge ordered.
Gotta love that last line: "required to pay the funds monthly, which comes from taxpayer money"
Our tax dollars at work. And yeah, the second article says the following:
WA Attorney General Bob Ferguson announces bid for governor, campaign trip around state
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Tuesday that he will run for governor in 2024.
An exploratory committee has been formally launched, according to a press release from his campaign office, and Ferguson, a Democrat, will spend the next few weeks traveling across Washington.
“I have never been afraid to take on big challenges, and I’ve never forgotten who I’m fighting for,” Ferguson said in the news release. “I look forward to listening and learning from Washingtonians in every county and corner of this great state.”
His management of the Attorney General's office has been useless.
And he thinks that he is able to run the state?
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