Dunleavy, who secretly suspended Clarkson, ducks question about former AG

Despite his protests, there are many things that Gov. Mike Dunleavy could say about the behavior that led to the resignation of former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson.

But Dunleavy chooses to stay silent, falsely claiming that’s what the law requires.

We know, from Clarkson’s own resignation letter, that he was punished and secretly placed on unpaid leave in August.

We also know that Dunleavy planned to allow him to return to work Sept. 1, having done his penance for inappropriately pursuing a young woman half his age. He sent her 558 text messages in a month and invited her to his house at least 18 times.

We know this because of an investigation by Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica.

At the Dunleavy COVID-19 show Tuesday, the governor’s office banned participation by Hopkins, fearing that he would ask Dunleavy about Clarkson.

Hopkins said on Twitter that Dunleavy’s PR man, Jeff Turner, “barred me from participating in this news conference because I wouldn't reveal what kind of questions I wanted to ask.”

Turner has no business deciding what is or is not an appropriate question for the governor to answer. No doubt Turner is just carrying out the wishes of Dunleavy, who doesn’t want questions that make him uncomfortable.

And Dunleavy has no business saying what is or is not acceptable. Every news organization in the state should be alarmed at the decision to ban a question by Hopkins.

“Again, this is supposed to be a COVID-related press conference,” Dunleavy complained about having to hear a question from another reporter Tuesday that didn’t deal with the pandemic. He said, “we’re trying to focus on the virus here.”

Despite excluding Hopkins, an Anchorage broadcast reporter, Daniella Rivera, asked the question that Turner and Dunleavy didn’t want to hear: “Governor, Alaskans are concerned about how you handled the attorney general’s inappropriate text messages. They want to know what you knew, when you knew it and what exactly you did to address the AG’s behavior?”

After some hemming and hawing, Dunleavy said:

“That issue was dealt with according to law. And there are statutes that allow and prohibit certain comments on that. And so once again if that’s a question you want answered you can send it to our press, They’ll screen it through our Department of Law to make sure that the answers that you’re given are in, in conjunction with allowable, applicable law to actually talk about that issue.”

At this point, Turner launched into a condescending lecture to reporters: “As a quick reminder to the reporters on line, this press conference, the topic is COVID, so please if you have topics, questions on a different topic, as the governor said, we’re happy to respond to those. Just send me an email and we’ll get responses to you as quickly as possible.”

Translated, Dunleavy has no intention of saying anything and he hopes that Clarkson will join the ranks of Alaska’s forgotten attorneys general.

In the statement Dunleavy released last week, he made it appear as if he had just learned about Clarkson’s behavior. He said Clarkson did the right thing in resigning and that Clarkson had not lived up to the standards that Dunleavy requires.

“Kevin Clarkson has admitted to conduct in the workplace that did not live up to our high expectations, and this is deeply disappointing. This morning he took responsibility for the unintentional consequences of his actions and tendered his resignation to me," Dunleavy said in a statement last week.

Clarkson confessed to a “lapse of judgment.”

Left unsaid then and now is that Dunleavy actually learned about Clarkson’s conduct in the workplace months ago, which is why he secretly suspended the AG, who was to return to work Sept. 1. The publication of the investigation ended that.

The question that the governor ducked remains: What did Dunleavy know and when did he know it?

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