Connecticut First Lady Reportedly Subpoenaed

HARTFORD, Conn. - The wife of Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland has been subpoenaed by federal authorities investigating alleged corruption in her husband's administration, according to published reports.

The subpoena requires Patricia Rowland to produce documents or records, but it does not compel her to appear before a grand jury, The Hartford Courant and the New Haven Register reported Saturday. Patricia Rowland's personal attorney, Robert M. Casale, told the Register the subpoena seeks documents relating to gifts she or the governor may have received.

When reached by The Associated Press, the governor's chief counsel, Ross Garber, declined comment.

The first lady has been a vocal defender of her husband, who is facing an investigation into whether he should be impeached after admitting he lied about accepting gifts for his cottage from friends, employees and a state contractor.

At a Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites) breakfast in December, she delivered a parody of "T'was the Night Before Christmas" that criticized the media for "their thirst and hunger for the day's biggest story."

The U.S. attorney's office, the state attorney general and the state House Select Committee of Inquiry are investigating the governor's actions.

Sources told The Courant the subpoena could focus on her role in preserving and maintaining the governor's official residence in Hartford. Documents relating to the residence have already been taken from state officials by the FBI (news - web sites) and federal prosecutors.

The first lady is heavily involved in the Governor's Residence Conservancy Inc., a private foundation that has raised more than $1 million to renovate the mansion and gardens. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has raised questions on how the money has been spent.

True enough. On the other hand, Patty Rowland is not being asked to testify. She is being asked to produce written records which is not protected. One might question just how the records requested whatever they may be might be authenticated without her testimony. I practiced law in Connecticut for a quarter of a century and know Bob Casale well. I have no doubt that whatever can be excluded will be excluded and that Patty Rowland will come out of this a lot cleaner than the corrupt scum whom she married. I also hope and trust that he will hammer Richard Blumenthal into the dust as he always has in the past, but Blumenthal will not have the nerve to personally face Bob in court, if the AG's office is involved at all. Blumenthal will let some underling take the punishment. The US attorney's office is professional enough to know and respect Casale

Rowland's Democratic predecessor to whom you refer was Ella Tambussi Grasso not Ellen. She died two governors before Rowland in 1979 or thereabouts. She was succeeded by William O'Neill, a brainless windtunnel and compulsive tax raiser and O'Neill was succeeded by Lowell P. Weicker, Jr., the lowest form of existence on earth since the serpent who tempted Eve.

Ella spent her pre-gubernatorial career as a hard-edged and foul-mouthed liberal. She long served in the General Assembly and then as Secretary of the State and then two terms as an extreme liberal Congresswoman. She had grown up in the working class milltown of Windsor Locks but graduated Mt. Holyoke. She was an activist in the Plague of Women Vipers aka League of Women Voters. When she ran for governor against a liberal Republican Congressman Bob Steele in the Watergate election of 1974, she saw more and more of the socially conservative working folks she grew up among. During the campaign, she promised NOT to live in the governors' mansion but to commute to work by train to Hartford and, after election, she did so. Overnight, she turned hard to the pro-life side and she pledged NEVER to institute a state income tax. Those were the BIG issues of her time as governor. When the Connecticut Commission on the Status of Women criticized her opposition to welfare funding of abortion, she gave an interview to the Hartford Courant threatening to fire the entire commission and staff for butting in to her decisions on public policy because she was elected and they were not and said: "I will not be a party to the killing of little children."

When Ella died long and hard of cancer, she had become a beloved figure and officeholders of both parties began to agitate for a statue of her to be placed in the State Capitol facade (which was not done because no governor in centuries had been so honored). Rowland is not fit to polish her gravestone.

Weicker bought and bribed legislators (with state jobs and what not) until he got his personal income tax and eliminated much of Connecticut's taxation of the upper crust in Weicker's neighborhood. Even O'Neill would not enact an income tax. Even Abraham Ribicoff and John Dempsey were elected governor on the promise to veto any income tax on wages and salaries.

Rowland first abandoned his Catholicism by abandoning and repudiating his pro-life voting record as a Congressman (doing a reverse Ella), then ran twice for governor before being elected on the second try while vowing not to reduce but to repeal the income tax on wages and salaries. He lied and he knew he lied but Republicans wanted to believe him. He is now in his third tax-raising term. He is despicable and second only to Weicker. Rowland has become the Planned Barrenhood governor, bought and paid for. He has been bad on guns, bad on taxes and bad on in party matters.

What has strengthened the elitists in control of the Connecticut Demonratic Party today such as former Herod Blackmun Law Clerk Richard Blumenthal is the social issue surrender monkeyism of John Rowland. If he had the guts to govern Connecticut as he served most of his time in the General Assembly and Congress, the GOP would be in the drivers' seat in Connecticut. You can blame any Connecticut political disaster on Rowland and you will not go wrong. Jail is a good place for him where, if in the federal hoosegow, he might join Illinois's Lyin' George Ryan as a roommate. Two of a kind.

Written records are not covered. The right here is the spousal right to exclude testimony by a spouse (unless the spouse is a party to an action involving the other spouse in which case I am fuzzier on details). They still have to authenticate the documents though before they can be admitted in evidence. Ordinarily, the maker of the document would be called to say: "That is a document I created. I recognize it and it fairly represents what I wrote and has not been altered." Rowland can refuse to let her testify at all and that will cause serious problems of admissibility. Do not put it past the Justice Department to be on a fishing expedition. Do not be surprised if Bob Casale convinces a judge to quash a fishing expedition subpoena of Patty Rowland's records. Do not be surprised if Rowland winds up in jail regardless.

An exception to the general rule that turning over documents (and other objects) is not incriminating "testimony" applies when the act of turning over the documents itself has a testimonial aspect. A recent application of this exception was U.S. v. Hubbell ,[20] which arose out of Ken Starr's Whitewater investigation.[21] In Hubbell, Starr forced Hubbell to produce documents that Starr suspected, but did not know, existed and suspected, but did not know, were in Hubbell's possession.[22] Hubbell had resisted the subpoena by pleading the Fifth Amendment but was forced to turn them over when he was granted immunity.[23] Despite the grant of immunity, Starr prosecuted Hubbell on fraud and tax evasion charges based on the documents.[24] The Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling that Hubbell could not be prosecuted because Starr's case was tainted by knowledge of the documents.[25] The Court found that, because Starr did not know that Hubbell had the documents (or even that they existed) and gained knowledge of the document's relevance to his investigation through the fact that Hubbell had them in his possession, the act of turning the documents over to Starr had a testimonial aspect.[26] This testimonial aspect of the document production violated Hubbell's Fifth Amendment rights.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.