Bill, great catch...I read the entire article. Okay....Where is the ACLU and NOW? Move-On? Imagine if President Bush personally called Karl Rove's cousin to investigate the Plame/Wilson Controversy. Then the documents were shredded. It would go over like a lead ballon. I think you need a completely independent ethics commission made up of bloggers.

[QUOTE]Bredesen orders stop to shredding
Notes have been destroyed in sexual harassment cases in which the governor’s office has taken an interest

By BRAD SCHRADE
Staff Writer

Published: Friday, 07/15/05
Gov. Phil Bredesen ordered the state Department of Personnel today to stop shredding investigative files after The Tennessean reported such activity in two high-profile harassment cases involving high-ranking officials in his administration.

“Effective immediately, please retain all documents, including notes, of workplace harassment investigations,” Bredesen said in a memo to Personnel Commissioner Randy Camp.

The shredding controversy gained steam this week in the wake of the resignation of Commissioner Quenton White of the state prison system.

The newspaper reported that the personnel investigator looking into an August 2004 sexual harassment complaint against White shredded her notes. The governor says the allegation was unfounded, but because there are no records of the investigation, the public has no way to judge.

The same investigator, Kae Carpenter, cousin of the governor’s top aide, Deputy Governor Dave Cooley, also shredded her notes when she investigated a workplace harassment claim against Bredesen’s top lobbyist and policy adviser Robert “Mack” Cooper. Bredesen demoted Cooper in May.

The governor had personally called Carpenter to investigate Cooper. And Cooley made the call to his cousin to investigate the White case, Bredesen said on Wednesday. The governor’s lawyer also sent a memo to Carpenter requesting the investigation.

Yet, today the Governor’s press secretary Lydia Lenker said that the governor was surprised to learn that the file on White was empty.

The Tennessean reported last month that many of the files of investigations ordered by the governor’s office were either empty, had documents withheld or shredded – while similar investigations without involvement from the governor’s office were extensively documented.

Bredesen’s memo calls on the Personnel Department to review its policies on creating and keeping documents, and use the best practices of states across the nation to protect victims and witnesses of workplace harassment.

The governor has previously said the state government has a problem with sexual harassment, and he wants to seal some harassment records from the public’s access, to protect the victims in the case.

Published: Friday, 07/15/05 [/QUOTE]

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050715/NEWS0201/50715002

If there were a scandal story here then the victims (alleged or otherwise) of these incidents would be talking to Schrade. They are not. What does this tell you? They want to maintain they're privacy. This is why the notes were destroyed.