(Headline USA) Michigan Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office allegedly attempted to hide communications from the public by corresponding in coded language, according to a lawsuit.
One email from consultant Andrew Leavitt to Whitmer’s senior energy adviser, Kara Cook, had to do with the Whitmer administration’s response to a local water crisis and was written in Greek alphabet font.
“Hot off the presses. As I warned there are some major red flags. It seems like we are back at square one having not learned from Flint,” the translated message, sent in 2021, reads.
The email was sent amid the Whitmer administration’s response to reports of lead in the Benton Harbor, Michigan, water supply. Residents of the town are suing Whitmer’s administration, alleging that officials downplayed the risks of the crisis publicly while privately relaying concerns.
The use of the Greek language and alphabet “appears to be calculated to conceal” those concerns, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs in the case argue that “despite having clear information that there were increasing levels of lead in Benton Harbor’s municipal water, state and city defendants lied to residents that the tap water was safe and recommended remediation measures that they knew were ineffective.”
Whitmer claimed earlier this year that she has “always supported enhanced transparency when it comes to the government,” and even campaigned on a pledge to increase transparency during her 2018 campaign.
For example, she promised to reverse a policy that exempts the Michigan governor’s office from the Freedom of Information Act, saying, “Michiganders should know when and what their governor is working on.”
The coded message likely would not have been discovered had it not been for Benton Harbor’s lawsuit, since Michigan’s public records department is unable to electronically search for records that use Greek letters, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
