A Jeff Mazur photo from the Royale Flickr account during happier times
The E. coli scandal isn't going away.
Following ongoing reports by Chad Livengood of the Springfield News Leader and after a summer of denials, Nixon's top aides held a press conference yesterday announcing yet another internal investigation, another suspension, and the amazing revelation that Jack Cardetti actually misled the press about how much the Nixon inner circle knew about dangerous levels of contaminants in the Ozarks.
Nixon is full of bluster now, and his aides are wildly spinning, so check out Patrick Tuohey's background on the scandal at Big Government. Much of the work has been done by state news reporters, but credit has to be given to the Source as well, whose analysis has been really accurate on who is involved, what it means, and who is going to be sacrificed to save the Nixon Administration from admitting fault.
This isn't my story - but there is an interesting sideline that needs to be uncovered. Jeff Mazur was the point man for all media inside the Nixon Administration. He was the person informed on May 26th of the test results, and it is Mazur who had to come out yesterday with Jack Cardetti and do a full mea culpa in front of the press corps.
"After Watson ordered DNR to release the May 26 E. coli results,
Medley sent a news release to Mazur for his approval. As Nixon's senior
adviser for policy and communication, it's Mazur's job to approve news
releases coming from state agencies.
Medley claims Mazur
instructed her on June 26 to limit news about the high levels of E.
coli to media outlets within the vicinity of Lake of the Ozarks.
"So
on the 26th I called Jeff, finally, because I hadn't heard anything and
he said, 'Yeah, we don't want you to issue this press release. We want
you to issue it as a statement and only send it to those people down at
the lake or any media who have requested it.' So, that's what we did,"
Medley told Senate staffers.
Mazur does not deny Medley's claims.
But he said it's office policy to limit the release of information that
only pertains to a certain geographic region."
That is a pretty astounding statement - that Mazur only thought small local papers needed to hear that the Ozarks were unsafe to swim in. At the heart of the matter is determining whether or not Mazur knew this was a politically sensitive matter, and what steps he took to divert attention of the press from the E. coli scandal.
Earlier in this year, I took it upon myself to look through the FiredUpMissouri archives. In doing so, I was able to conclusively link Jeff Mazur to the author profile of "General Content." This was supposed to be a catchall account for the site, but as I discovered, General Content was used to attack Peter Kinder and praise Jay Nixon on a regular basis starting just about the time Mazur was brought onto Nixon's staff. This is what I wrote in late July.
What you have there is Jeff Mazur attached in two ways to the General
Content author profile on Blogger. It's not that common a profile, and
considering the number of posts put out that cover topics Mazur would
be deeply familiar with, one can likely conclude that Jeff has got the
blogging bug bad, but can't write under his own name, so he continues
to do so under the name General Content, where he explicitly and
viciously attacks the Lieutenant Governor while praising Jay Nixon...
What I didn't know at the time was that Mazur was heading up the response on the E. Coli scandal. I'm currently waiting for a reply from the governor's office on Sunshine requests from this time period, but starting on July 9th, you have five separate personal attacks on Peter Kinder on FiredUp Missouri originating with the General Content author.
That July time frame is important. From Livengood's July 29th article, we get this tidbit of information on what Mazur was doing.
According to the records request, Nixon's office became more
involved in getting DNR to release the May report on June 25, when
Medley sent Nixon staffer Jeff Mazur a draft press release and talking
points for his review. Mazur, a former AFSCME labor union official,
spends part of his time as the governor's liaison to the Department of
Social Services and the rest reviewing news releases from state
agencies, Cardetti said. A
copy of Mazur's revisions to the talking points memo -- saved in
Medley's e-mail -- shows he suggested removing a section explaining why
DNR didn't release the results sooner.
That is a screenshot of the MapYourTaxes portal, which shows Mazur's position and salary. On June 25th, Mazur was a "special assistant professional" to the Office of Administration. On July 1st, he was moved over to the Office of the Governor as Senior Advisor for Policy and Communication. This is significant for many reasons:1) Mazur's role in the administration had not changed. Prior to July 1, he was a liaison to different offices and in charge of press releases. His change was a title and budget move only. What is strange is the timing - right after the E. coli information went public, and just two weeks before the story hit the statewide media.
2) Mazur's position in the Office of Administration was a political one that was actually in question at the beginning of the year. Republicans had made noises about defunding the position when Mazur first took it, as Mazur came from AFCSME (the union gave millions to Nixon's 2008 election campaign). Mazur's appointment was seen as political payback to big donors, as he was not brought directly into the governor's office and under his payroll. It's strange that such a lightning rod would suddenly be moved into the governor's staff. While Republicans had threatened to defund Mazur, the budget had been set. He wasn't going anywhere. Mazur didn't get a raise - they simply changed his title mid-year. He sits at the same desk and does the same job. So why waste paperwork?
3) The governor's office had to know this was going to be big news. It's possible that Mazur was moved so he could speak more directly for the governor. It's also possible this was a planned move so he could more easily be assigned new roles in the DNR scandal. In fact, in September, in what was called a routine shuffling of staff, Mazur was named liaison to the DNR. A final thought is that with Mazur now working directly for the governor, Nixon could try to assert executive privilege if they need to bury the evidence. What we know is there was a title change, and a reason. Someone needs to ask Nixon what that reason was.
4) A final twist: Knowing as we do that "General Content" begin attacking Peter Kinder July 9th, we must ask: Was Mazur, who knew of the potential political fallout, seeking to distract the state media with a series of attacks on the Tour of Missouri to blunt the effect of the E. Coli reports? Were his attacks on Peter Kinder a personal vendetta, or an attempt to distract the news media prior to the governor's scandal?
That's a lot to digest, but the truth will come out. This is just a tiny portion of the story, but Mazur, who now claims he did nothing wrong, has to be worried. We're up to six people who have resigned or been disciplined, and with Nixon's story changing regularly, Mazur has to think he's expendable. But he's not.
Nixon's original reports were that Nixon's staff didn't know of the problems until mid-July, but now we see the man who knew before Memorial day, and who was in charge of press releases for Nixon managing to stay afloat while others fall on their swords. What makes Mazur so special? It's because he has the potential to be a real problem for Nixon. The Missouri Democratic Party revolves around three people right now - Jay Nixon, Claire McCaskill, and Robin Carnahan. Carnahan is the one most in bed with the union power structure, but Nixon owes a lot to his biggest donors. Carnahan and Nixon have an uneasy truce, and Mazur is a big piece bridging that. See, Jeff Mazur is married to Mindy Mazur, who is the head of Robin's Senate campaign. Nixon quite literally can't let Jeff Mazur go, because firing the husband of Robin's past and future chief of staff would be seen as a personal betrayal. Carnahan won't let Mazur get thrown under the bus, but Mazur is at the center of the scandal. If Mazur turns on Nixon and says Nixon knew - that could be the end. If Mazur is left onboard, Nixon will face accusations of blind loyalty to staffers who committed wrongs.
If you're wondering why Republicans are gleeful in Jeff City, it's because the Democrats face either a crippled administration, or a bloody Democrat on Democrat battle. The scandal isn't over. The press is now distrustful because they've been lied to. Democratic State Senators can't seem to stay out of jail, and all the while, the state of Missouri suffers.
Of course, Nixon could do the right thing. Simply tell the full and unvarnished truth. That's the best way to make this go away. I don't want to draw another comparison based solely on names, but sometimes you really can draw lessons from history.
