Gretchen Whitmer slips state money to leftist political operatives to spy on Michiganders, then lies about it

By Monica Showalter

It's pretty amazing how many negative activities gather around Michigan's hard-faced and ambitious Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Besides her outrageous performance on the coronavirus crisis — banning sales of garden seeds, seeding nursing homes with COVID-19 patients, forcing private dam operators to overfill their reservoir for greenie purposes, causing two of them to burst — she's also a liar.
We saw that clearly enough when her husband tried to put himself at the front of the boating queue by citing his marriage to her — cronyism at its worst — and she claimed that it was a joke.  It was a story so egregiously bad that the only reason we didn't comment about it here at American Thinker earlier is that we mistakenly thought the story was fake.  Now there's the matter of Whitmer's political corruption — succoring her political cronies at state expense to spy on Michiganders to beef up the Democratic Party operation, which she's also lying about.
According to the Daily Wire:

Newly released emails show that Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer's office gave the "green light" for taxpayer money to be awarded to Democrat groups as part of the state's coronavirus tracing program.
"Whitmer's office gave the 'green light' for a COVID-19 contact tracing 'arrangement' she denied knowledge of and canceled amid outcry over a contractor with Democratic ties," Bridge Magazine, a local Michigan publication, reported. "Emails obtained through a public records request appear to show Michigan officials tried to avoid controversy by shifting work to apolitical subsidiaries of firms with known partisan leanings."

It would be bad no matter what the sneaky money was for, but in this case, the awfulness is multiplied because it's state money for leftists to spy on Michiganders — and not just spy on them, but use that information to benefit one political party's campaign operations.  Guess which:

In late April, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Whitmer had given control of the state's contact tracing program to "one of the left's biggest technology firms" and that the move was seen as potential way of her "using the coronavirus to strengthen the Democratic Party's data operation."
The Washington Post reported that the group that hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were going to go "would be managed in coordination with EveryAction, a firm that is closely linked to NGP VAN, a technology provider that boasts that it powers 'nearly every major Democratic campaign in America.'"

That's handing leftists an illegal campaign contribution at taxpayer expense, amounting to naked political corruption.
Now she's lying about the whole thing.  According to the Wire:

Whitmer struggled to respond and had to resort to reading prepared notes when pressed during a news conference in April about why she awarded the contracts to partisan left-wing groups.
"When it was brought to my attention, I told them to cancel it," Whitmer claimed. "This was an unnecessary distraction. Leadership is about solving problems. The correct process was not followed."
Whitmer refused to answer who was responsible for making the decision to use those companies.

This sounds like her bizarre response to the boat dock scandal, or her strange intransigence on keeping Michigan's economy closed, or her insistence on all mail-in ballots.  She claims to be the good guy when it's clear as day that her hands are filthy with scandal.  She seems to recognize it, too, which is why she keeps lying.
She's already under investigation by the state Legislature for her nursing home scandal.  She ought to be under a big-time federal probe for this one.  Something is way off about this woman, who will do anything to advance her own political prospects and those of her cronies.  Her supposed popularity in her state is astounding, given the scale of her scandals.  I suspect it's fake.
It's time for the feds to step in.  This isn't normal politics.

It's pretty amazing how many negative activities gather around Michigan's hard-faced and ambitious Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

Besides her outrageous performance on the coronavirus crisis — banning sales of garden seeds, seeding nursing homes with COVID-19 patients, forcing private dam operators to overfill their reservoir for greenie purposes, causing two of them to burst — she's also a liar.

We saw that clearly enough when her husband tried to put himself at the front of the boating queue by citing his marriage to her — cronyism at its worst — and she claimed that it was a joke.  It was a story so egregiously bad that the only reason we didn't comment about it here at American Thinker earlier is that we mistakenly thought the story was fake.  Now there's the matter of Whitmer's political corruption — succoring her political cronies at state expense to spy on Michiganders to beef up the Democratic Party operation, which she's also lying about.

According to the Daily Wire:

Newly released emails show that Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer's office gave the "green light" for taxpayer money to be awarded to Democrat groups as part of the state's coronavirus tracing program.

"Whitmer's office gave the 'green light' for a COVID-19 contact tracing 'arrangement' she denied knowledge of and canceled amid outcry over a contractor with Democratic ties," Bridge Magazine, a local Michigan publication, reported. "Emails obtained through a public records request appear to show Michigan officials tried to avoid controversy by shifting work to apolitical subsidiaries of firms with known partisan leanings."

It would be bad no matter what the sneaky money was for, but in this case, the awfulness is multiplied because it's state money for leftists to spy on Michiganders — and not just spy on them, but use that information to benefit one political party's campaign operations.  Guess which:

In late April, The Washington Free Beacon reported that Whitmer had given control of the state's contact tracing program to "one of the left's biggest technology firms" and that the move was seen as potential way of her "using the coronavirus to strengthen the Democratic Party's data operation."
The Washington Post reported that the group that hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were going to go "would be managed in coordination with EveryAction, a firm that is closely linked to NGP VAN, a technology provider that boasts that it powers 'nearly every major Democratic campaign in America.'"

That's handing leftists an illegal campaign contribution at taxpayer expense, amounting to naked political corruption.

Now she's lying about the whole thing.  According to the Wire:

Whitmer struggled to respond and had to resort to reading prepared notes when pressed during a news conference in April about why she awarded the contracts to partisan left-wing groups.
"When it was brought to my attention, I told them to cancel it," Whitmer claimed. "This was an unnecessary distraction. Leadership is about solving problems. The correct process was not followed."
Whitmer refused to answer who was responsible for making the decision to use those companies.

This sounds like her bizarre response to the boat dock scandal, or her strange intransigence on keeping Michigan's economy closed, or her insistence on all mail-in ballots.  She claims to be the good guy when it's clear as day that her hands are filthy with scandal.  She seems to recognize it, too, which is why she keeps lying.

She's already under investigation by the state Legislature for her nursing home scandal.  She ought to be under a big-time federal probe for this one.  Something is way off about this woman, who will do anything to advance her own political prospects and those of her cronies.  Her supposed popularity in her state is astounding, given the scale of her scandals.  I suspect it's fake.

It's time for the feds to step in.  This isn't normal politics.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/gretchen_whitmer_slips_state_money_to_leftist_campaign_cronies_for_spy_on_michiganders_then_lies_about_it.html#ixzz6NkQijftH
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