Gov. Rick Scott, liar
MIAMI – Don’t take it from me. Admittedly, I am no fan of our state’s chief executive. Take it from the man who was the top cop in the state until Scott abruptly fired him without cause last December: former Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Commissioner Gerald Bailey.
Scott has put out conflicting stories about why Bailey is no longer at the head of the state’s law enforcement agency. Bailey, like every police officer, knows that when a subject changes his/her story, it’s almost certain they are lying. The Bailey case not only proves that Scott is a liar, it also shows that he is a pretty inept one.
It seems that Scott imagined that he could give Bailey the ax after Bailey successfully resisted Scott’s many manipulation attempts, then concoct a cover story about a resignation, and that would be the end of it. The Commissioner would just fade away into a comfortable retirement.
A bad calculation: Bailey evidently didn’t survive all those years fighting against characters a lot tougher than Rick Scott by being a pushover. Bailey pushed back. That forced Scott to spin, twist the truth, and get himself all tangled up in the process. As the Miami Herald reported,
“As the controversy over Bailey’s ouster has intensified in recent days, Scott has made conflicting statements, at first saying Bailey did ‘“a great job.’” Later he said Bailey resigned, then said he wanted a change at the helm of the agency and accused Bailey of making “’petty attacks.’” Which Scott should we believe?
Bailey, who spent three decades in law enforcement, has a stellar track record. Described by one of his peers as a “consummate professional,” Bailey, as the head of an independent agency, says he fought back against the Scott administration’s repeated attempts to interfere with the agency’s mission and use it for patronage and as a political tool. Scott denies all. Believe who you will. But be mindful of this: Bailey’s record of integrity is major league, Scott’s Bush league (pun intended).
According to the Herald,
“Ousted Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey claims he resisted repeated efforts by Gov. Rick Scott and his top advisers to falsely name someone a target in a criminal case, hire political allies for state jobs and intercede in an outside investigation of a prospective Scott appointee.”
And that’s a partial list. The myriad brazen ways in which Scott and his aides tried to manhandle an agency not legally under the Governor’s control could fill a book. Still, one instance stands out as especially egregious.
According to Bailey, “ former Scott chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth pressured him to claim that the acting clerk of court in Orange County, Colleen Reilly, was the target of an FDLE criminal inquiry after two prison inmates used forged papers from the clerk’s office to plot an escape from the Franklin Correctional Institution,” part of the state’s prison system which the Governor does control.
Bailey told Hollingsworth it just wasn’t true. But Scott and his people were not willing to take no for an answer. So another Scott spear carrier, press aide Frank Collins, drove to Bailey’s office at FDLE headquarters and asked Bailey if he was defying a direct order from the governor’s office. When Bailey again refused to play along to get along with the state’s top honcho, Collins left in a huff.
In Bailey, Scott had met his match–and then some. In retrospect, the conflict sees almost inevitable. Bailey, known as a by-the-book straight shooter, wasn’t about to be complicit in putting out a slander or in perpetrating a miscarriage of justice.
“The most shocking thing was being ordered to target another individual without any justification. I don’t know why this woman was in the cross hairs,” Bailey says. Now Bailey became the one in the cross hairs
Scott, a former CEO, is used to obedience. But on this and many other issues he found out, to his surprise and dismay, that he couldn’t run roughshod over Bailey. So he fired him.
Even that didn’t turn out so well for Scott. His explanations of why Bailey is gone are reminiscent of the Japanese classic film Rashomon. It’s about an event as told by three different people with conflicting perspectives. However, in this case the conflicting accounts come from the same person: Scott!
In one of his versions, Scott accused Bailey of making petty accusations. But Bailey’s accusations are extremely serious. In this affair, the one who comes through as petty and vindictive is Scott and only Scott.
It’s depressing to think we will have such a miserable person as Rick Scott as governor for four more years. But, alas, there is at least one silver lining. In these times of frequent police misconduct and corruption, it’s good to know that there are still cops out there who are both tough and honest.
