
What was Meg O’Leary doing there for the 2015 Democratic Governor’s Association (DGA) meeting?
Surely Bullock must have taken her along, for at the time he was head of the DGA.
So…why’d he take her?
For more than six months now we’ve speculated on what happened that got Angela McLean fired.
You might remember this story from posts I’ve done before:
- Sex in Montana Politics (Dec 2)
As you can see, we covered most of this stuff back in December…a whopping 7 months ago.
I haven’t touched the story since the end of March, and in that post I pretty much laid it all out.
Laid it out and then moved on, for nothing new was there.
Way back in February I encouraged people to email me or call me if they had new info.
Yesterday someone called.
It was a woman calling from a restricted number. She told me that what I’d reported on the sex scandal is true.
She told me that several people have lost their jobs over this sex scandal, mainly because Bullock and O’Leary are trying to cover their tracks.
I specifically mentioned the Department of Commerce, which O’Leary heads up, and how I imagined there have been staff layoffs because of this scandal.
The woman did not deny this, nor did she deny that the same had happened in the Capitol. She said that "several" people had lost their jobs because of this.
Well…is that new?
We know that McLean lost her job over it, but how many other, not-so-high-profile state workers lost their jobs?
Remember, these are people with families and kids in school and pensions on the line. They're regular people that just want to do their job.
But they got caught in the crossfire.
These are the people that will talk, and for the reporter that’s sitting on this story, that’s a good thing.
I was told that there is a Montana reporter sitting on the Bullock sex scandal story, just waiting to run it.
If I had to guess I’d say it’s one of these people:
- James DeHaven
- John Adams
- Mike Dennison
Those are the only three that I can think of that might have done some work on this, enough perhaps to tell us what happened…but just not enough to get their corporate papers to sign-off.
Again, it comes down to women like the one that called me yesterday, those brave souls that come forth and talk.
I did not get a name from this woman yesterday, nor did I get information on where she worked.
I would not give out that information if she had given it to me, as I’ve not given out the information on the people that have emailed me about this story starting way back in December.
That said…what good does it do?
There is no major proof, no major paper trail, and just stonewalling and silence from our state government, attacks against you after-hours if you press it.
I mentioned all this to the woman that called me. She told me that there is information, and she continued to bring up Bullock’s plane.
I mentioned that I have no access to Bullock’s schedule, reports on his discretionary funds, or when that airplane comes and goes.
On that last one I took a look at the FAA Registry but there are more than a hundred planes listed for Lewis & Clark County alone.
And let’s not forget that Bullock might have gotten around questions about the state plane by using Neptune Aviation Services in Missoula for charter planes. He spent $47,000 for “in-kind transportation” since 2014.
What I was told is that Bullock and O’Leary went off to the Kentucky Derby together, which would have been May 7…or May 2 if we go all the way back to last year.
Last year makes a lot more sense. Jet her off to the DGA conference in March and then down to the racetrack in May. Who knows what else they were doing during that time…or earlier.
I was told the two of them had gone to the Paul McCartney concert together, which would have been in Missoula way back on August 5, 2014.
Going back to our timeline we see that in December 2014 a private conversation between Bullock and McLean resulted in a hostile atmosphere.
Could talk of what Bullock and O’Leary were doing have created animosity between Bullock and McLean?
It’s not hard to believe, not hard at all.
And then there’s Puerto Rico, the site of the 2015 DGA Convention.
I was continually told by the woman that called me to look into the flight records or at least the trip that was made to Puerto Rico.
So…what the hell happened in Puerto Rico?
Many are wondering what happened, wondering and waiting. The story is ready, it just needs to come out.
I feel that James DeHaven will break this story. He did some good work in Nevada ruffling feathers and we already know that Montana Democratic Party mouthpiece MT Cowturd has taken the knives to him after reporting he did on Bullock’s campaign finances in April.
It was a long report, hard to understand for most people. Mainly, lots of money shuffling around between the Party and the PACs, lots of professionally campaign workers getting lots of money, some paid twice as they already are on Bullock’s staff.
Stories like that get pushed under the rug, as do stories like the one from June 5 that told of the $2,000 that Bullock took from the DGA for travel expense reimbursement.
Here is where we have trouble.
The trouble isn’t so much about the DGA connection – hell, Schweitzer was head of the DGA (but Bullock’s spending 292% more on travel than Schweitzer).
No, the trouble is what was being done during that travel. Let's go back to the DGA story.
Democratic Governor’s Association communications director Jared Leopold “did not answer questions about which specific events the Bullock staffers traveled to.”
Bullock’s staff added that this was not important because Bullock “does not engage in political activity on state time.”
He then “declined to respond to other questions” that DeHaven asked.
DeHaven did discover that the DGA sent “more than $1,900 in travel expenses to Montana Department of Commerce Director Meg O’Leary.”
This can only be for the Puerto Rico trip.
Again…what the hell happened in Puerto Rico?
On June 6 the Lee Enterprises scrubbed a story about the Puerto Rico trip…but not until after they published it on their site.
You can read about that on Republican Uprising blog.
The story is about the same as the one I linked to above, though it mentions $3,800 being paid to O’Leary, not $1,900.
After that some questions are asked:
- “If O’Leary wasn’t at the March 2015 DGA conference in Puerto Rico, where exactly did the DGA have O’Leary travel to and why did she refuse to answer that question when she was asked about it?”
- “Was O’Leary on state time while traveling to and attending this DGA function?”
- “Why was a non-elected Cabinet officer like O’Leary paid by the DGA to attend a Democratic Party function in the first place?”
Lots of questions, few answers.
So where does that leave us?
To me it’s pretty clear what happened.
- Sometime in 2014 Bullock and O’Leary began having an affair.
- They started to jet off together so that Bullock’s wife wouldn’t find out.
- After enough times of that they got comfortable, let their guard down.
- They started to charge the taxpayers and the DGA for their trysts.
- When these trysts became more brazen and state employees started to learn about them, people were moved to other positions or other agencies if not fired outright.
- We don’t know how many people were fired, though we can assume McLean was one and that “several” more got the axe as well, as I was told by our caller yesterday.
- When state newspaper and TV reporters ask about these travels, funding, schedules, or anything else they get stonewalled and aren’t given answers.
So what can happen?
- The story can come out in the mainstream media and Bullock will have serious problems, ethically with voters and perhaps legally over the use of money for travel and the fired workers.
- The story could remain buried until Gianforte unleashes it…and in whatever form his opposition research firms present it.
- Nothing could happen.
I figure it’s likely the third option will take place – nothing.
With either of the first two Bullock is gone from the ticket or somehow stays on.
Many political hangers-on can't let that happen. The professional lobbying and consulting class that relies on Bullock's DGA kickback's to them can't let that happen. Either way, he loses and Dems lose the governor’s office.
It might all come down to Puerto Rico.