The Washington Post

Ex-gov­er­nor could be charged in Flint probe

- — Kim Bell­ware and Brady Den­nis Crime · U.S. News · White-collar Crime · Flint · Michigan · Richard Snyder · Lyon · Dana Nessel · Covington, Michigan

For­mer Michi­gan gov­er­nor Rick Sny­der (R) and sev­eral for­mer of­fi­cials are ex­pected to be in­dicted over the 2014 Flint wa­ter cri­sis that led to at least 12 deaths and dozens of ill­nesses in the pre­dom­i­nantly Black city, the As­so­ci­ated Press re­ports.

Sny­der, his for­mer health de­part­ment di­rec­tor Nick Lyon and for­mer ad­viser Rich Baird were among those told by the of­fice of Michi­gan At­tor­ney Gen­eral Dana Nes­sel (D) of the pend­ing in­dict­ments and ad­vised to ex­pect im­mi­nent court dates, the AP re­ported, cit­ing un­named peo­ple.

The na­ture of the forth­com­ing crim­i­nal charges was not clear. Court­ney Cov­ing­ton, a spokes­woman for Nes­sel’s of­fice, told The Washington Post that in­ves­ti­ga­tors were still work­ing “dili­gently” and de­clined to con­firm re­ports of im­mi­nent charges.

Brian Len­non, an at­tor­ney for Sny­der, blasted the re­ported charges as a “smear cam­paign.”

The cri­sis traces back to April 2014, when Flint switched its wa­ter sup­ply to the Flint River in a cost-sav­ings mea­sure un­til a per­ma­nent pipe­line project was com­plete. Flint res­i­dents im­me­di­ately com­plained about the wa­ter’s odor and ap­pear­ance, even­tu­ally re­port­ing health is­sues such as skin rashes.

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