End of panel’s LePage probe won’t stem impeachment talk

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

AUGUSTA, Maine — An investigation into Gov. Paul LePage’s role in forcing the ouster of House Speaker Mark Eves from a new job at Good Will-Hinckley could wrap up Thursday, but it might not be the end of some lawmakers’ efforts to discipline the governor.

The Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, in partnership with the watchdog Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, has been conducting a fact-finding investigation for months, trying to determine whether LePage’s threat to rescind his support for Good Will-Hinckley and a public charter school it operates on its campus in Fairfield was illegal.

LePage has publicly admitted that he threatened to withhold more than $500,000 per year in taxpayer funding if the organization hired Eves as its president, which has become the central question in hours of testimony by witnesses during the past two months.

Witnesses who testified under oath during a seven-hour hearing on Nov. 12 differed over whether the funding threat was implied or explicit.

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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2015/12/01/politics/end-of-panels-lepage-probe-wont-stem-impeachment-talk/

[Jack Rabbit]

1. There probably isn't a more incompetent governor in the 50 states

Scott Walker may come close, but he knows more about what he's doing. LePage is just an undisciplined tyrant.

When one reads a sentence like LePage has publicly admitted that he threatened to withhold more than $500,000 per year in taxpayer funding if the organization hired Eves as its president, it's pretty hard to see how that can be anything but an explicit threat. Exactly what is LePage supposed to have said?

[mainer]

2. Even Maine's GOP is embarrassed by him.

The local scuttlebutt is that impeachment talks are quietly underway.