Kentucky governor is looking for law firm to investigate predecessor
Kentucky’s Republican governor Matt Bevin will hire a private law firm to investigate his Democratic predecessor, Steve Beshear.
According to ABC News, Bevin announced Tuesday that the state would begin the process of hiring a lawyer or law firm for the purposes of assisting Kentucky’s Finance Cabinet in investigating various no-bid contracts awarded during Beshear’s administration, as well as allegations that state employees were forced to donate money to Beshear’s campaign.
“Let’s be clear: Corruption and pay-to-play, or pay-to-stay, will not be tolerated in this administration,” Bevin said in a statement to reporters.
Bevin, who was elected last November, has been at odds with his predecessor for months. Bevin has been critical of Beshear naming his own wife to an unpaid state commission job. The two have also clashed on health care, with Bevin following through on his campaign promise to dismantle Kynect, the state’s health care exchange which had been created by Beshear. The former governor recently launched a non-profit organization dedicated to educating voters about health care. Also complicating matters is the state’s newly elected Attorney General, Andy Beshear—who happens to be Steve Beshear’s son. The younger Beshear recently sued Bevin over mid-year budget cuts, with a hearing on the lawsuit scheduled for Thursday.
“At some point, Matt Bevin has to realize there is a time to campaign and a time to govern,” Beshear said in a statement, while saying that the allegations “have absolutely no basis in truth.”
According to ABC, Beshear has faced similar allegations in the past. In 2014, a deputy secretary in Beshear’s cabinet was fined $5,000 by the Ethics Commission for telling his employees how much money they should give to Beshear’s 2011 re-election campaign. Bevin also criticized Beshear for, among other things, awarding a $3 million no-bid contract to a company based in North Carolina that happens to employ the spouse of a former Beshear official. “No-bid contracts should be used only when absolutely necessary and warrant close scrutiny,” Bevin said, according to ABC.
However, as ABC reports, Bevin has already faced criticism during his short time in office for appointing the wife of the Republican Senate president to a state job and awarding a no-bid, $3.6 million contract to a company tasked with overseeing the state’s managed care organizations.
