Thread by @DavidPepper

🚨 🚨

NEW WHITEBOARD

Where’s there 💨, there’s often some 🔥

And right now, there’s a whole lot of 💨 billowing up around some very bizarre activity by Ohio’s Governor when it comes to the Ohio Teachers Pension Fund, and a recent election to that board.

WATCH, RT &

1/

In case the video seems far-fetched, lots of news outlets have already been covering this bizarre and perfectly timed ousting of a pension board member only hours before an election result was announced.

2/

Here’s one story: nbc4i.com/news/local-new…

Here’s a @toledonews editorial calling out how outrageous the Governor’s action here has been:

Warning: it’s really harsh (and a conservative paper)

3/toledoblade.com/opinion/editor…

And here’s the statute that makes clear that to remove a pension board member, the Governor would have to go to court and convince a judge—you can’t just replace someone because you feel like it (or because someone important tells you to 👀) :

4/codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-c…

The ousted member has now sued to stop his replacement, and get his seat back.

Here’s his very powerful motion making the case that the Governor broke the law—even using the Gov’s own past analysis (when he was Attorney General) against him:

5/

drive.google.com/file/d/1wOctJd…

Oh, and once the member and others started raising questions, the first thing the Governor’s people said was that this member had an absenteeism problem, but:

1) they needed to make that case in court.

2) minutes from meetings of the board make it clear that that is false:

6/

He had a strong attendance record overall, and had attended all the recent meetings as well, so the idea that he was being terminated for bad attendance at that very moment makes no sense:

7/strsohiowatchdogs.com/board-minutes

So yes, there’s a whole lot of smoke.

And what’s interesting, is now that this is in court, the governor is hiring top-flight outside lawyers to represent him.

With all that’s going on in Ohio, why has this all been so important to him??

8/

Soooo many questions.

And yes, we’d all love to see what communications the Gov had on the eve of this attempted ousting, and w whom—after the votes came in, and before the announcement of the election results.

Will share what else I learn.

END