Ninety nine point nine percent of them are bullshit, but this one has teeth.
Gov. Nathan Deal has taken a page from the political playbook of Sonny Perdue by appointing the spouse of the top federal prosecutor for North Georgia to a seat on a state commission.
Deal’s office last week disclosed that the governor has reappointed J. Comer Yates, the husband of U.S. Attorney Sally Q. Yates, to a seat on the Georgia Commission on Hearing Impaired and Deaf Persons.
Because of that gubernatorial appointment of her spouse, Sally Yates, who has extensive experience prosecuting political corruption cases, will be required by Justice Department rules to recuse herself from any future investigations that her office may undertake involving Deal’s activities.
Deal has put himself in a similar position regarding potential federal investigations as his predecessor as governor, Perdue.
In August 2006, as Perdue was in the middle of his reelection campaign, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a series of articles that detailed Perdue’s real estate investments in Houston County and in Florida. …
About six weeks after the Salzer article detailing Perdue’s secret tax break appeared in the AJC, Perdue appointed Atlanta lawyer Catherine M. O’Neil to a seat on the state’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. The O’Neil appointment was announced by the governor’s office on Sept. 28, 2006.
O’Neil, then as now, is the wife of David Nahmias, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia in 2006. Nahmias’ office would have been responsible for carrying out federal investigations, if any had occurred, into Perdue’s real estate dealings.
Coincidence? I doubt it, considering the track records of Deal and Perdue.
