(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, former Police Chief Carmen Best, Fire Chief Harold Scoggins and several other high-ranking Seattle officials dodged criminal charges despite deleting thousands of texts concerning the 2020 Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
King County law enforcement, in collusion with prosecuting attorneys Leesa Manion and Dan Clark, stated that based on their legal analysis they “conclude[d] that there [was] no legal basis to file criminal charges in this case,” according to the Post Millennial.
The King County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Intelligence Unit penned a summary of all of the evidence and concurred that there was no evidence of a conspiracy to destroy public records.
“I have found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy to destroy public records contained in any city cell phones, and no evidence that unauthorized access from outside the city had caused the loss of data,” the report read.
The sheriff’s office claimed that the deleting of the texts was an accident with no specific culprit.
“It was a perfect storm of training delinquencies, outdated and conflicting policies and procedures, and insufficient safeguards to prevent the loss of records that primarily contributed to the destruction of these text messages,” the report detailed. The sheriff concluded that without this key evidence the ability to file charges was rendered impossible.
The conclusion was reached despite a judge having previously sanctioned the city for destroying evidence and noting that Durkan’s excuses “strained credibility,” the Post reported. The city was also ordered to pay nearly $200,000 last year to settle a lawsuit brought by the Seattle Times for allegedly mishandling information requests for messages between city officials.
Manion kept the investigation inside her department, despite being known acquaintances with Durkan and Best.
Durkan’s office initially claimed that an “unknown technology issue” wiped out the text messages, but a forensic investigation revealed that Durkan set her phone to delete texts automatically after 30 days.
She also said she dropped her phone in a tide pool on July 4th weekend in 2020. This also turned out to be a lie, as the forensic report revealed the texts were deleted manually.
Best allegedly deleted 27,000 texts from her phone, and Scoggins reset his mobile device in October 2020. Several high-ranking county officials implicated in the cover up claimed they had to reset their phones because they forgot their passwords.
Missing texts included messages with CHAZ leader, Raz Simone.
Always fun getting back public disclosure requests showing that local officials were co-ordinating with the 'warlord' of occupied Seattle pic.twitter.com/TayYHdgvuI
— Ari Hoffman (@thehoffather) January 19, 2021
