The virus of political scandal has mutated in Connecticut
The virus of political scandal has mutated in Connecticut. Leaders who should be the antidote have instead given us none.
Gov. Ned Lamont continues to dismiss the emerging picture of alleged contract steering in his administration’s school construction financing program. The program, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year, is the focus of a federal criminal investigation.
The Greenwich Democrat apparently refuses to speak the name of his former top adviser who subpoenas from federal law enforcement authorities suggest is at the center of the probe. That’s Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis, the former Democratic state representative who was Lamont’s former deputy budget director and head of the school construction financing agency.
Lamont has developed a raging case of Diamantis distancing. In 2020, Lamont announced big plans for the state’s State
Pier project in New London. He declared that while he gives the speeches, “It’s up to Kosta to deliver the goods.” Today, Lamont refuses to utter his name. Diamantis is now “some deputy.”
Worse, Lamont wants to shut down discussion. He warned a radio host to be careful about calling these dismaying events a scandal, which they are. Lamont, who leans heavily on his carefully created genial image, is allowing a tone to slip into his tart explanations. Can a snarl be far off?
Lamont’s aversion to candor was at its starkest on Feb. 25. The governor took questions from the press in the hall outside his Capitol office that Friday afternoon after announcing the resignation of budget chief Melissa McCaw. The answer when CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas asked Lamont if he knew of the federal subpoena when it was served in October: “I think Nora may have mentioned it to me, just in passing.”
For students of 21st century Connecticut corruption scandals, this was a poisonous statement against honor. Nora is Nora
Dannehy, the governor’s legal counsel. She secured her place in state history when she was one of the lead federal prosecutors who exposed former Gov. John Rowland’s corrupt practices in 2004. Dannehy knows the significance of a federal subpoena. She wielded plenty of them in the public interest. To say Dannehy would mention “in passing” one aimed at the heart of the Lamont administration is an incredible statement that reveals far more about Lamont than Dannehy.
The strategy of silence spread to the legislature on Tuesday. The anti-toxin has not been created that can protect us from the ill-effects of what the legislature’s finance and education committees dumped into the public square during a hearing on, well, anything but the school construction investigation.
The hearing was billed as addressing school construction. The Senate co-chair of the finance committee, John Fonfara, D-Hartford, announced he is an advocate of robust legislative oversight and then prohibited discussion of the investigation that prompted the meeting. Fonfara’s excuse was that there is an ongoing federal criminal investigation. In most places that would be a reason to probe more, not issue gag orders.
State Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, Fonfara’s House counterpart, went along with the charade. The ambitious Scanlon is running for state comptroller,
an office that requires an inquiring disposition and some distance from the governor. I believe Scanlon ruled himself out as a qualified candidate by breathing in the virus of silence.
A river of drivel ran through the two-and-a-half-hour embarrassment. The most sustained performance came from Department of Administrative Services acting Commissioner Michelle Gilman. The Colchester Democrat proved her bona fides as a party functionary.
Gilman droned on for 45 uninterrupted minutes about internal audits, external audits, and other dry procedures. Her near-filibuster included the ban on saying Diamanits’s name.
Reality made two illuminating appearances at the hearing. State Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, pointed out that nothing Gilman was prattling on about addresses her town’s experience. Tolland officials claim that Diamantis threatened their school construction projects if they did not hire two of his favored contractors. Audits do not stop bullies.
State Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, added a late moment of blinding clarity. “Can you simply tell us … what went wrong here?” he asked. The day’s river of drivel crested when Gilman needed
Martin to restate the question.
What went wrong was the system for building schools for the state’s children appears to have been perverted. A federal investigation provides a vaccine for the symptoms gripping state government. So does an election, and that’s what Tuesday’s show hearing was about.
Kevin Rennie of South Windsor is a lawyer and a former Republican state senator and representative.