LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s outside legal fees related to the ongoing Flint lead-contaminated water crisis could climb as high as $2.7 million, Gov. Rick Snyder’s office said Tuesday.
Snyder’s office previously estimated its legal fees — to be paid with public money — at nearly $1 million in February, according to Snyder spokesman Ari Adler. Snyder’s office now estimates it could rack up $1.2 million in legal costs on top of the cost of the attorney general’s office signing a $1.5 million contract with Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood to act as special counsel in its investigation into whether laws were broken regarding Flint’s lead-tainted water.
Adler said the governor’s office has notified the State Administrative Board about the new cost estimate, though Snyder’s office doesn’t need the board’s approval to proceed.
Snyder’s office hired attorneys Eugene Driker and Brian Lennon to help with expected legal work, Adler said. Driker is assisting the state attorney general’s office with its ongoing investigation. Snyder hired Lennon to help define search parameters and other work related to state documents requested through public records requests and the thousands of documents Snyder released voluntarily.
“The resources were needed to complete the work that has to be done, and needed to be done in a timely manner,” Adler said. “We simply do not have the resources in the executive office, or even using the attorney general’s office for assistance.”
Flint’s water crisis happened after it switched from the Detroit system to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure in 2014. Lead from aging pipes leached into the drinking water because it wasn’t treated with anti-corrosion chemicals.
Common Cause Michigan and the Michigan Democratic Party Chair Brandon Dillon criticized the selection of Flood as special counsel in the attorney general’s investigation because he donated to Snyder’s campaign. Dillon also said in a statement that the projected legal fees are “beyond outrageous.”
Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for the Michigan attorney general’s office, defended Flood’s contract and said the office “is running an independent, broad-based investigation team that will leave no stone unturned.”
Bitely said the attorney general’s investigation is “not connected in any way” to Snyder’s administration and is not “subject to the monitoring of the administration.”
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They could save a lot of money if they simply locked Snyder’s ass up.
How many feet of lead pipe in Flint could be replaced for $2.7 million?
It’s the GOP way. Leave the taxpayers for the bill after you fly the government into the side of the mountain.
It’s a twofer.
Well, let’s see: Poisoned untold thousands of young children, potentially disabling them for life. Cost to Michigan taxpayers, so far: $2.7M – and that’s only the legal fees. What does it cost to care for the thousands of permanently disabled children … for life?
Yeah, Republicans are fiscal conservatives and all about family. Snyder and his henchmen need to be behind bars. I hope the feds put them up river for a very long (and hard) time. My thoughts are with the victims of this deliberate poisoning and their families.
Damn. That’s $2.7 million that can’t be used for legal fees to pursue some obviously unconstitutional law all the way up to the Supreme Courtlet [if you want to be original, I don’t think anyone has tried “no abortion clinics within 20,000 feet of a roadway, to protect patients from tailpipe emissions”].