Gov. Rick Scott failed to give straight-talk today about the role his office played in influencing FAMU’s decision to postpone the first meeting of its independent task force on hazing.
A reporter asked (at 1:52 in the video): “Did you ask FAMU to delay the work of the independent task force?”
“No. I didn’t,” Scott responded. “But I think it makes sense for them to allow the FDLE [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] investigation to happen first.”
Another reporter then confronted Scott with the fact his chief of staff did initiate public pressure for FAMU to halt the task force’s work.
“Mr. MacNamara suggested that, right?” the reporter asked.
“Yeah…I think…I think…I think…um…I think Steve did, though. Steve MacNamara,” Scott said.
He "thinks" his chief of staff did? Doesn't the chief of staff speak on behalf of the governor's office?
MacNamara said the inspector generals of the governor's office and Florida Board of Governors (BOG) were "better suited" to investigate the hazing problem than FAMU's independent task force.
“In my opinion, we don't need duplication and dueling tasks forces and the Inspector Generals are much better suited to review this matter than the group assembled,” MacNamara wrote in a November 29 email to the BOG.
Why did reporters have to drag this information out of Scott? The governor should have said from the outset that his chief of staff took a very strong public position against FAMU's task force.
As reported yesterday, Rattler Nation has learned that the membership composition of FAMU's task force has very likely triggered some unhappiness within the governor's office. Apparently, the group has too many Democrats and even, worse, too many Charlie Crist supporters.
The BOG probe is currently a one-sided investigation that is focused on former Director of Bands Julian E. White’s allegations that the FAMU administration did not do enough to help him fight hazing. The BOG has not expressed any interest in investigating the administration’s claims that White exercised a lack of competence in reporting alleged hazing incidents within the band.