Attorney General Marty Jackley is saying South Dakota has a corruption problem because the Legislature hasn’t passed tough enough penalties. Doug Wiken laughs at that buck-passing:
Jackley is even more interesting in his round-about excuse. Wasn’t he who failed to keep the dog out of the cookies. Nope, it was South Dakota voters and legislators who hadn’t passed legislation tough enough to stop and penalize EB-5 high jinks. Of course, he only came to this conclusion after this years legislature shut down. He also is apparently unaware of a few hundred pages of South Dakota law which would have put unconnected, non-influential people like us in jail for years for doing a pitiful fraction of the cookie eating [Douglas Wiken, “Excuses from Rounds and Jackley,” Dakota Today, 2016.04.08].
In his weekend column, Bob Mercer adds to the case that Jackley could have adopted his newfound “bring back the integrity” last May when Mercer himself alerted Jackley to evidence of financial mischief at the Mid-Central Educational Cooperative in Platte.
If a newspaper reporter can take time to look at the auditor general’s annual report, it would seem state government’s law enforcement agency can. South Dakota news media published news stories about the Mid Central audit between that morning in May and that morning in September.
…This isn’t a rip at Marty Jackley or anyone else. That gains nothing. But there were plenty of opportunities for many people to know and act. We have to be better [Bob Mercer, “So Many Signals Missed at Platte,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.04.09].
Attorney General Marty Jackley got signals from the press about the Mid-Central/GEAR UP corruption in May 2015, before Mid-Central scandal-maker Scott Westerhuis apparently killed his family and himself in September. Jackley knew about illegal activity within the state’s EB-5 visa investment program back in fall 2009 when Governor Mike Rounds appointed Jackley Attorney General and Jackley inherited the Darley legal mess created by EB-5 czar Joop Bollen’s illegal lawyering.
South Dakota’s corruption mess doesn’t come from a lack of laws. It comes from a lack of curiosity and a lack of zeal for enforcing the laws we have.
Pontius Jackley wants to be Governor in the worst way, and so far he’s succeeding (rim shot!).
He’s lucky South Dakota doesn’t have laws allowing voters to recall statewide elected officials. Next election …
I’m sure laws can be improved, but it’s not as if South Dakota hasn’t dealt with various corruption issues over many decades. When these sorts of things occur over and over, and one party always seems to be in charge, you have to consider that corruption is ingrained, and it’s focus is in the party that controls government. I’d conclude that corruption is the way South Dakota leaders, particularly the Republican leaders, do business. It has all the elements of organized crime, which needs a compliant or bought off government/law enforcement component to really thrive.
I saw it up close in the sewage ash scam. Repeated violations of law and permit conditions. Then government officials repeatedly ignore these violations. This feigned government incompetence really is meant to hide actual governmental protection of criminal behavior by favored interests or elites. What explains that protection of criminal behavior if not payoffs and patronage given to government officials by the crooks? It’s got all the elements of organized crime.
Now with the recent news of the oil spill — how much did the government know about this before this line was implemented? I don’t think we are hearing all the truths about the seriousness of this spill. I don’t know if we ever will. I wonder who all profited with this line. They also want to put a Canada oil line criss-crossing the South Dakota state — so we will have one all along the east side (not Sioux Falls of course) running north to south . Then another one criss crossing North West to South East. Why? Because we don’t have “100,000’s of thousands of people that live in the plains??”. I don’t understand why South Dakota has to be sacrificed.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess the Attorney General isn’t constrained by statute,to not officially get involved before someone commits murder/suicide. Were there any deaths in the Mette case?
This has nothing to do with corruption in SD, and everything to do with Jackley’s upcoming run for Governor. He will do what he can to score brownie points between now and Nov while people are paying attention then it will all go dark.
Jackley’s conflict of interest legislation is commendable, however it is only a small part of the problem with corruption.
Until state employees and public officials can report financial wrongdoing and cover ups there is no or will there be any consequences.
Surely Jackley could find a way around to the gag law and encourage employees in all departments to come forward, it could always be from an anonymous source.
A lot of South Dakota residents don’t believe that corruption and cover ups don’t start and stop with EB-5 and MCEC.
Marty must know that one can’t be simultaneously the solution to corruption and the one covering up corruption.
From September 4, 2009 when he was sworn in as AG up until last year Marty was the “see no evil” monkey who let the Joopster get away with all kinds of shenanigans while Marty blamed everything on the dead guy.
The Joopster as a non-lawyer representing the state in court while concealing the very existence of a lawsuit: no problem; silence from Marty.
The Joopster as state employee (without contracting authority) entering into a contract with his own private company: no problem; silence from Marty.
The Joopster acting as a bank without paying bank franchise tax: no problem; silence from Marty.
But Marty’s involvement with corruption goes beyond just looking the other way. He actively covered up for a rogue police force in Flandreau by bottling up the DCI report and letting the crooked cops off the hook without even telling the public. That story deserves more play because: How many people were convicted based on dummied up cases and/or planted evidence? How many people, even if their cases were dismissed, got unjustified bills for court appointed lawyers in dummied up cases? How many people pled guilty in cases where the evidence was dummied up or just plain missing because the police stole it? It may very well be that a whole lot of closed cases need to be re-opened in Flandreau.
Okay. Marty Jackley was alerted to the GEAR UP scandal before the killings. Why didn’t he act on it?
Wow don&rohr…decades go by. Nothing changes. Dems need to get in. Investigate independently. Clean house. Address every public suspicion. No more time for ordinary business. If buearacrats cant do jobs ethically keeping the ship upright, they expoze their true qualities. No more eb5s, rounds&daugaards, and Mcecs! It Might Take 4 Years To Clean It Up. Many Issues To Correct
leslie,
Yeah, it’s decades of corruption. I wanted to say something about how this stuff works. It’s not that all of the folks working in state government are corrupt. Largely, there are a lot of good folks working in state government doing the best they can. In some cases they aren’t allowed to do the best they can by the political leaders at the top.
The people who were initially most concerned about the sewage ash plans were state employees with DENR. They thought it was bogus right from the start. They didn’t trust any of the people behind the project, but it had some high powered, but hidden, South Dakota investors/supporters. As a result, Janklow was much in favor of this project, and he was really pushing it. DENR maneuvered to get an AG opinion to require a permit hearing for the project. Then they asked me to petition for a contested case hearing!!! I mean that was an incredible thing to be asked by DENR to petition for a hearing. They told me that didn’t trust the people who were proposing the project. They wanted to get the sewage ash scammers under oath. That was about as far as they could go in pushing the matter. DENR ended up recommending approval of the permit, though I got the impression that it was a result of being beaten down by Janklow, not because they actually thought the project was good.
Once the sewage ash scammers got their permit, Jankow was off to a cushy job in Minneapolis, where the sewage ash was coming from. I have always wondered about how he got that job, and whether it was connected to his work for sewage ash scam. Meanwhile, Mickelson inherited the mess, and he lacked the guts to put a halt to the project. It took old fashioned investigative reporting to uncover the scam, and that was not done by government. It was done by the Technical Information Project.
Corruption in South Dakota largely starts and ends at the top. If you have good leaders who refuse to be bought by the special interests, you won’t have corruption. You don’t have that in South Dakota right now.
The big umbrella that makes corruption work is the gag-law. That was written by the AG office for a governor who wanted to get by with stuff. Then when the unmentionable gov retired the new legislature went to Pierre, 80% of them for throwing out the gag-law and the AG office got them legislators behind closed doors and told them we will not get rid of it. So it may be true that the voters, legislature, governor an AG office all are at fault since any group could have straightened that out, the AG office should definitely not be the one throwing stones.
You know how we get rid of the gag law, Roger? Elect a Democratic governor. The GOP party will be tripping over itself to repeal the gag law, pass a whistleblower law, and enact real conflict of interest measures.
A good defense is an aggressive offense. After all Daugaard appointed Jackley to conduct an independent investigation of the alleged Benda suicide; also DD quickly appointed Jackley to again conduct an independent investigation of the alleged murder/Suicide in Platte; Daugaard also appointed a (fake) legislative committee to investigate EB5; we all know the thoroughness of these investigations and it appears non of them eliminated the public skepticism or confirmed that we don’t have all the answers to these incidents.
Mr. Solberg, does the Governor have the power to appoint legislative committees? I am really struggling to follow all the conspiracy theorists these days, so I don’t know. Could it have been the Lt. Governor who pointed them, or maybe the Speaker Pro Tempore? I think you or I may be confused. I’m just sayin…
@AberdeenDailyNews … Why does a worthy rip at an AG who did a poor job for whatever reason gain nothing? Or do you mean it gains no advertising money for your paper to be the least bit controversial, even if it’s a well deserved “rip”?
Jackley is agreeing to let Joopster go hang out in Vegas and Costa Rica?!?
Its time to drain the sd swamp!
what is marty’s net worth since becoming AG?
South Dakota’s statutes on financial interests does not require elected officials or candidates to report any actual dollar figures, just enterprises in which they have interests greater than $2K or which contribute more than 10% of their income. In 2009, Jackley listed his US Attorney job, his wife’s job at Specialty Select Nursing Services, a 15% membership in Midas Enterprise LLC’s 20% ownership of apartments in Rapid City, and 25% interest in a fishing trailer kept at South Whitlock.
In Nov 2017, he listed his job as AG and his wife’s job at Storm Clinic of Sioux Falls. By that report, he thus appears to have a hand in fewer assets.