In 2006, as New Hampshire Attorney General, Kelly Ayotte did not investigate whether charges were warranted against Financial Resources Mortgage. Now, there's a giant fraud case against FRM and the question has been raised why Ayotte did not act back in 2006. But her emails were deleted when she left office.
Now, it's beginning to look like a full-on cover-up. Ayotte, as a Senate candidate concerned for her future, is piously calling for release of emails that were deleted but remain on a back-up system. But if back-ups exist, why weren't they released to begin with?
Because Ayotte said not to:
In a report under her official letterhead issued on July 15, 2009, she interpreted a provision of the law to mean that if an electronic record is deleted but remains in the "delete" file or on a back up system, it would be considered "legally deleted" and would be "properly treated as no longer subject to disclosure" under the right to know law.
She said that emails only existing in back-up wouldn't be disclosed. Then her emails were deleted.
But that's not all. Dean Barker gets to the key point here:
Take another look at the date of that memo: July 15, 2009.
Kelly Ayotte filed to run for Judd Gregg's senate seat less than a week later.
On her way out the door, Kelly Ayote wrote a permission slip for herself to keep her digital communications as Attorney General secret.
This sure doesn't look good. What's particularly fascinating here, though, is that the reliably Republican Union Leader has been digging into the story while the conservative Cornerstone Policy Research Action has called for an independent counsel. They may mostly be gunning for Democratic Governor John Lynch, but they don't seem too concerned about what happens to Kelly Ayotte in the process.