Barbour’s blind trust records now public
An attorney for Barbour, the only known elected state official to have a blind trust, submitted the documents this month to the Mississippi Ethics Commission as required by a new state law. He initially requested they remain secret, but commission members appeared unwilling to bypass open-records laws.
Included in the blind trust are Barbour’s involvement in LEHI Partners LLC and Policy Impact Strategy Communications and an interest in an Arlington, Va., townhouse, as well as cash, stock and bond accounts with A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. S. Griffin Norquist Jr. is listed as trustee.
An investigation started by the commission almost a year ago turned up no evidence on who gave the same documents to the national media. But Walter Brown, a former chairman of the commission who investigated the leak, said the Ethics Commission could have done a better job keeping the documents secure.
Brown and Willie Huff, law enforcement director at the Mississippi Department of Transportation, investigated the leak at no charge to taxpayers.
They looked at more than 3,600 e-mails and phone and fax records from the Ethics Commission, and interviewed the commission’s staff, its members “and other persons who may have had access to the confidential documents,” according to Brown’s summary report.
Bloomberg News Service and The New Republic reported receiving the documents.
“Both (reporters) were contacted and … adamantly refused to reveal how they came to receive copies of the trust documents,” the Sept. 12 report said.
Clarion Ledger
9/18/8
Magnolia Tribune
