Mother Jones: "There's a Mike Huckabee mystery that won't go away. Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid."
There's a Mike Huckabee mystery that won't go away.
Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid.
In 2007, during Huckabee's campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, the issue of the eradicated hard drives surfaced briefly, but it was never fully examined, and key questions remain. Why had Huckabee gone to such great lengths to wipe out his own records? What ever happened to a backup collection that was provided to a Huckabee aide?
Huckabee is now considering another presidential run, and if he does enter the race, he would do so as a frontrunner. Which would make the case of the missing records all the more significant. These records would shed light on Huckabee's governorship—and could provide insight into how a President Huckabee might run the country. Meanwhile, observers of Arkansas' political scene—including one of Huckabee's former GOP allies—say the episode is characteristic of a politician who was distrustful and secretive by nature.
In February, Mother Jones wrote to the office of Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe seeking access to a variety of records concerning his predecessor's tenure, including Huckabee's travel records, calendars, call logs, and emails. Beebe's chief legal counsel, Tim Gauger, replied in a letter that "former Governor Huckabee did not leave behind any hard-copies of the types of documents you seek. Moreover, at that time, all of the computers used by former Governor Huckabee and his staff had already been removed from the office and, as we understand it, the hard-drives in those computers had already been 'cleaned' and physically destroyed."
He added, "In short, our office does not possess, does not have access to, and is not the custodian of any of the records you seek."
"Huckabee just absolutely doesn’t trust anybody," says one former high-ranking Arkansas Republican. "In my experience, if you don't trust people, it's because you're not trustworthy."
The person who may know the most about Huckabee's records—or lack of them—is Jim Parsons. A self-described gadfly, Parsons is a former Green Beret turned good-government crusader who has filed dozens of Freedom of Information requests targeting Arkansas politicos on both sides of the aisle, including the Clintons. Shortly after Huckabee left office, Parsons went to battle with the state over his records.
In January 2007, Parsons requested "a copy of all information" on the Huckabee administration's computers the day he left office. Beebe's office provided Parsons with a January 9 memo addressed to Huckabee from the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, reporting that all of the gubernatorial hard drives had been "crushed under the supervision of a designee of [Huckabee's] office." That is, a Huckabee aide had made sure all this information was destroyed.
The memo included another tantalizing piece of information: The information stored on the drives had been saved on a backup, which was handed over to Huckabee's then-chief of staff, Brenda Turner. The history of the Huckabee administration, then, was locked away, under the watchful eye of a former aide. What did she do with this information? Where is it now? Turner, who now runs the PR shop for a Arkansas-based purveyor of Christian-themed greeting cards, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. (Contacted via his political action committee, Huckabee didn't respond to questions about his records.)
Parsons requested the backups and eventually filed a lawsuit against Huckabee and Beebe, alleging that the new governor had siphoned taxpayer money from an emergency fund to pay to replace the destroyed hard drives. Altogether, the new equipment cost over $335,000. Huckabee countered that the information on the hard drives included private details, such as social security numbers, that shouldn’t be released to the public. In the end, Parsons' suit was dismissed—largely because he didn't name Turner, who apparently possessed the records, as a plaintiff.
What do the Huckabee files hold? The records could provide details on any number of unsettled controversies involving a governor that faced at least 15 ethics complaints concerning, among other things: his failure to report gifts and outside income, his alleged use of state funds and resources for political and personal purposes, and the pardon of a convicted murderer and rapist who went on to kill again once released.
A former high-ranking Arkansas Republican who was once close to Huckabee and who requested anonymity told Mother Jones that the destruction of the hard drives puzzled him. "I don’t know what that was about, if they had things to hide or not," he says. But, he adds, the episode fits with Huckabee's general reticence when it comes to public disclosure. "Huckabee just absolutely doesn’t trust anybody. In my experience, if you don't trust people, it's because you're not trustworthy. We see the world through our own eyes."
Huckabee's aversion to public disclosure extends beyond his gubernatorial papers. He and his handlers have also taken steps to block access to videotapes of his sermons, spanning his 12 years as a Southern Baptist minister before he entered politics. During the 2008 campaign, Mother Jonesreported that Huckabee's campaign had refused to make the sermons public—and that, according to an official at one of the churches he'd led, much of the archival material relating to Huckabee's tenure had been destroyed.
Despite the opacity surrounding Huckabee's political and pastoral record, he has at times fashioned himself as a staunch advocate of government transparency. Running for president in 2007, Huckabee put forth a bold open-government proposal. "There's an old rule that says that when the sun shines, the germs disappear," he said in one video clip (watch it below). "Well you know, frankly, there are a lot of germs in government." So he proposed disclosing every federal government expenditure online within 24 hours. "You could find out exactly where every dollar of the federal budget goes, down to what it cost to mow the courthouse lawn in your hometown at a federal courthouse," he said. Discussing this plan at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (better known as CPAC) in February 2008, he said, "We should demand transparency and accountability from our government."
Yet Huckabee's calls for transparency did not extend to his own records. "There were twelve years of information there, of dealings of the executive branch," marvels Jim Parsons, referring to the hard drives. "And that bit of history is just lost. I thought it was wrong, physically and financially and historically and educationally wrong to just destroy them." He adds, "I probably would vote for him. It's just that he did a bad thing there."
Some of Huckabee's gubernatorial papers do still exist, records that were selected by his office and handed over to his alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University. Due to funding hang-ups and other delays, a spokeswoman for the university says the records won't be accessible to the public for another two years. That is, after the conclusion of the 2012 presidential contest.
Siddhartha Mahanta is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.
Title: Why Mike Huckabee is Surging and Why Christians Need To Be Aware Of The Real Huckleberry Source: RenewAmerica URL Source:http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/baldwin/071103 Published:Dec 1, 2007 Author:Chuck Baldwin Post Date:2007-12-01 10:26:24 by Happy2BMe
Christians Need To Beware Of Mike Huckabee by Chuck Baldwin November 2, 2007
With Christian conservatives trying to scramble to find a Republican presidential candidate they can support, some of them seem to be coalescing around former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee. Janet Folger, especially, seems to be trumpeting his candidacy. But is Mike Huckabee someone Christian conservatives should be supporting? Not everyone thinks so.
Randy Minton, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of Phyllis Schlafly's national Eagle Forum, said, "We called him a pro-life, pro-gun liberal, when I was in the state legislature and he was governor." Phyllis Schlafly herself was even more direct.
President and Founder of Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly, said this about Governor Huckabee: "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles." She went on to say, "Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee."
Even one of Huckabee's strongest supporters within the Religious Right, Pastor Rick Scarborough, head of Vision America, admitted, "Mike has always sought the validation of elites." Of course, my question for Rick Scarborough is, With an indictment such as that, how can you continue to support Mike Huckabee?
According to an opinion piece written by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal, "Paul Pressler, a former Texas judge who led the conservative Southern Baptist revolt, told me, 'I know of no conservative he [Huckabee] appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention.'"
Fund went on to say that "Mr. Huckabee's reluctance to surround himself with conservatives was evident as governor, when he kept many agency heads appointed by Bill Clinton."
Fund also said this about Huckabee: "'He's just like Bill Clinton in that he practices management by news cycle,' a former top Huckabee aide told me. 'As with Clinton there was no long-term planning, just putting out fires on a daily basis. One thing I'll guarantee is that won't lead to competent conservative governance.'"
Mike Huckabee is also terrible on immigration. According to Jim Boulet, Jr., executive director of English First, "Rudy Giuliani spent years defending the right of New York City to remain a sanctuary for illegal aliens. Yet Giuliani was a veritable Lou Dobbs Jr. on illegal immigration in comparison to Mike Huckabee."
Regarding Huckabee's stance on immigration, Mr. Minton said, "Until of late, he has been an open-borders guy on immigration--amnesty, the whole works. As governor, he wanted to give free college scholarships to all illegals."
Minton's assertion is backed up by Daniel Larison at The American Conservative. He said, "Like his fellow presidential candidate [who recently dropped out of the race], Sen. Sam Brownback, Huckabee regards it as his Christian duty to help subvert and liberalize U.S. immigration laws. Together, they embrace the notion that fidelity to the Gospel requires privileging the interests of non-citizens over those of fellow citizens."
Ann Coulter agrees: "On illegal immigration, Huckabee makes George Bush sound like Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). Huckabee has compared illegal aliens to slaves brought here in chains from Africa, saying, 'I think, frankly, the Lord is giving us a second chance to do better than we did before.'
"Toward that end, when an Arkansas legislator introduced a bill that would prevent illegal aliens from voting and receiving state benefits, Huckabee denounced the bill, saying it would rile up 'those who are racist and bigots.'
"He also made the insane point that companies such as Toyota would not invest in Arkansas if the state didn't allow non-citizens to vote, because it would 'send the message that, essentially, "If you don't look like us, talk like us and speak like us, we don't want you."'
"Like all the (other) Democratic candidates for President, he supports a federal law to ban smoking--unless you're an illegal alien smoking at a Toyota plant."
A former state lawmaker, Minton also said, that Huckabee was not a "fiscally conservative Republican." Rather, Huckabee was regarded as just another liberal "tax and spender" in fiscal matters. This is in direct opposition to Huckabee's boast of "90 tax cuts during his tenure." And the facts seem to validate Minton, not Huckabee.
An Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration report showed a "net tax increase of $505 million, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth" on Huckabee's watch.
That Huckabee is a liberal "tax and spender" is also affirmed by Tom Roeser. According to Roeser, "[Huckabee] hiked state spending 65.3%, from 1996 to 2004. He supported five tax increases, leading the 'Club for Growth' to call him a liberal in disguise . . ."
Roeser also points out that "The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank with heavy ties to the national GOP, gives him an F grade for spending and taxes in 2006 and an overall grade of D in his governorship. During his tenure, the number of state employees increased over 20% and Arkansas' general obligation debt rose by almost $1 billion."
Furthermore, according to the Washington Times, "Until recently, he [Huckabee] had refused to sign the famous no-tax pledge offered to candidates by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform."
In spite of Huckabee's proven big-government, big-spending, and pro- amnesty record, however, some Christian conservatives are falling for his conservative rhetoric. It seems that all a Republican candidate has to do is start talking "pro-life" and "pro-marriage" and he or she will gain the support of certain Christian conservatives.
First it was Bob Jones, III endorsing the liberal former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, and now it is Janet Folger endorsing the liberal former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. Why any Christian leader would want to support a man with such a dubious record truly escapes me.
Christians need to beware of Mike Huckabee. He is not a conservative. Even worse, he is not a constitutionalist. He is an opportunist, however. This is demonstrated by the fact that many of his supporters are openly posturing (with Huckabee's consent, obviously) for an opportunity to run Huckabee as a potential Vice Presidential candidate with either Giuliani or Romney at the top of the ticket.
Let me ask the reader something. How could a principled pro-life, pro- Second Amendment, pro-Constitution conservative be willing to run on a ticket with a liberal presidential candidate such as Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney? That's right, he couldn't.
I say again, beware of Mike Huckabee!
More Reasons To Beware Of Mike Huckabee by Chuck Baldwin November 27, 2007
Many Christian conservatives see Mike Huckabee as the best candidate to deliver the GOP from an impending pro-abortion presidential nomination of either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. Huckabee is doing especially well in Iowa, particularly among evangelicals. Is Mike Huckabee worthy of this support, however? The facts say no.
I have already attempted to warn my evangelical brethren as to the dangers of supporting Mike Huckabee. See http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20071102.html However, that first column was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Here are more reasons to beware of Mike Huckabee.
Robert Novak recently wrote a column about Mike Huckabee entitled, "The False Conservative." In the column he said, "Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist, big-government advocate of a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans."
Novak also said, "There is no doubt about Huckabee's record during a decade in Little Rock as governor. . . He increased the Arkansas tax burden by 47 percent, boosting the levies on gasoline and cigarettes."
Novak continued saying, "Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas journalist writing in the conservative American Spectator, called Huckabee 'a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak.' Huckabee's retort was to attack Hillyer's journalistic procedures, fitting a mean-spirited image when he responds to conservative criticism."
Calling Huckabee a proponent of big-government is an understatement. "If you listen closely, all the things he supports increase the size, power and cost of government. From subsidies for energy research to increasing money for health care and government housing, the size, power, and cost of government will not shrink under a President Mike Huckabee; they will increase . . . Mr. Huckabee swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution when he became governor, yet many of his proposals are clearly unconstitutional." (Source: David Ulrich, Letter of the Week, World Net Daily, 10/26/07)
In addition, Dr. Jerome Corsi reports that "Financial inducements arranged by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to establish a Mexican consular office in Little Rock may have violated state law, according to an Arkansas attorney."
Writing for World Net Daily, Dr. Corsi exposed the fact that Mike Huckabee "worked with some of the state's most prominent and politically powerful businesses to establish the [Mexican] consulate as a magnet for drawing illegal immigrants to the state to accept low-paying jobs."
Corsi goes on to report that "Arkansas attorney Chip Sexton provided WND a written legal brief arguing the state government's sublease to Mexico of office space for the consulate was illegal under Arkansas law. Sexton contended the deal raised questions about the appropriateness of private citizens and corporations in Arkansas providing financial incentives for the government of Mexico to locate a consulate office in Little Rock."
Corsi also writes that "Robert Trevino, commissioner of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, told WND he and Huckabee helped arrange state and private financial support to induce Mexico to establish the consulate as a business development 'quid pro quo.'
"Trevino signed on July 7, 2006, a 'Facilities Use Agreement' with Mexican consular officials to rent state government office space for $1 a year on the second floor of the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services building at 26 Corporate Hills in Little Rock."
According to Sexton, not only did subleasing state government offices to Mexico violate Arkansas state law under Ark. Code Ann. 22-2-114(C)(i) which provides: "After July 1, 1975, no state agency shall enter into or renew or otherwise negotiate a lease between itself as lessor or lessee and a nongovernmental or other government lessor or lessee," but it was even more offensive in that "there was nothing in the lease or other agreements that would have prevented the Mexican consulate from providing legal assistance to illegal aliens."
In addition, Corsi also exposed the fact that Mike Huckabee worked with Mexican President Vicente Fox to help provide cheap Mexican labor for Tyson foods and other large Arkansas corporations. According to Corsi, "Trevino confirmed he was state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, also known as LULAC, an activist group strongly advocating for the rights of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S., when on Oct. 3, 2003, he accompanied Huckabee in a state airplane to visit [President Vicente] Fox in Mexico."
There is more.
The American Spectator reported that "Fourteen times, the ethics commission--a respected body, not a partisan witch-hunt group-- investigated claims against Huckabee. Five of those times, it officially reprimanded him. And as only MSNBC among the big national media has reported at an real length, there were lots of other mini-scandals and embarrassments along the way."
Plus, writing for The Washington Times, Greg Pierce quoted Hillyer as saying, "[Huckabee] used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a 'charitable' organization he set up while lieutenant governor--an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious 'charity.'"
Mike Huckabee's beliefs and actions even border on the bizarre. According to David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, "GOP presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee suggested that as president he would, for the good of the people, support a federal anti-smoking law. You see, as governor, Huckabee supported such laws because, well, he doesn't like smoking and doesn't think folks should indulge in so heath-threatening an activity. If he could move on up to the presidency, he would continue his abolitionist crusade at the national level without giving much, if any, thought to the question of whether the Constitution or anything else would legitimize a federal ban on smoking."
I have yet one more word of warning for those evangelicals supporting Huckabee because he is pro-life: Mike Huckabee will most definitely support Rudy Giuliani should Giuliani obtain the Republican nomination. Count on it.
I ask you, how could a committed "pro-life" conservative support a pro- abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control liberal such as Rudy Giuliani? He couldn't.
At the end of the day, however, there is absolutely no question that Huckabee will support Giuliani (or any other pro-abortion Republican), because, when all is said and done, Huckabee and his fellow big- government Republicans have no real commitment to the life issue or to any other conservative principle.
Let's say it plainly: Mike Huckabee is just another big-government, establishment politician who will do nothing to stem the tide of socialism or fascism (pick your poison) emanating from Washington, D.C., these days.
Dear Christian friend, don't be duped by Mike Huckabee.