Republicans are trying to smear Gov. Janet Mills over a drug investigation that took place more than three decades ago — and cleared her.
A few months ago, when the possibility arose that Mills, a Democrat, might challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in next year’s elections, the National Republican Senatorial Committee — which exists to elect Republicans to the U.S. Senate — filed a Freedom of Information Act request to try to obtain files from this long-abandoned case.
It should not take a political expert to understand that the committee hopes to find something in the thousands of pages of investigative material to bash Mills with. Some Republicans say they’re already sure Gov. Mills has a secret past.
This piece from Trending Politics, a site offering “conservative commentary on the news stories of the day,” is typical of the kind of coverage the right-wing media is providing: “Questions still linger about an investigation into cocaine use by a Democratic governor from long ago.”
The Maine Republican Party linked on Facebook recently to a Fox News report, adding that “it’s another day in Maine and another powerful Maine Democrat is hiding something.”
Except … Mills isn’t hiding anything. If anyone is, it’s the federal government, which controls the records.
What do we know? We know that Mainers learned in December 1990 that former U.S. Attorney Richard Cohen was heading up a federal grand jury investigation into allegations that Mills had used illegal drugs while serving as the elected district attorney for Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties.
After a year full of headlines and rumors, Cohen sent Mills a letter late in 1991 informing her that the case had been dropped and she would not be charged.
In the interim, Mills alleged federal drug agents had leaked information to the press in an effort to smear her. She went to court to ask a judge to order the unidentified agents to stop spreading rumors. “I’d like to know who’s been saying things and why nobody’s come to me and said anything to my face,” Mills said in January 1991.
She never got a solid answer, though she tried to FOI the relevant documents to find out. She told the Ellsworth American in 1992 the federal agency insisted it was “too busy” to process her request. Whether she ever got the records is unclear. But by 1992, after she was cleared, Mills decided to move on.
“I’ve been damaged and my name and my family has been dragged through the mud,” she told reporters. “But my family and I feel it’s behind us now.”
For the next 33 years, crickets. Nobody cared anymore; a Republican-appointed prosecutor and grand jury had decided Mills didn’t do anything wrong. There was nothing more to say. Now, we’re in a new era of politics. Today, it doesn’t matter if there’s “no there there,” so long as it’s possible to persuade voters that there might be.
Thanks in particular to the Maine Wire, a right-wing news site purporting to carry out serious investigative work, many of the more online Mainers have learned of the long-ago case and began wondering if Mills could be brought down.
And the tantalizing possibility traveled further still. Last month, an enterprising Fox News reporter chased Mills down and asked her, “How much more does an eight-ball cost with inflation? Is sniffing cocaine at work a human right, Janet?”
The governor’s reflexive response, captured on video, was “What the f***?”
Indeed.
