Facing Ethics Questions, Mark Meadows Dodges, then Rushes to Reassure Supporters

A week ago, I put three questions about ethics to Andrea Larkin and Mark Meadows, the two candidates for judge of 54-B District Court Judge. Larkin’s answer was simple, Meadows’ response complex and incomplete.

These were the questions:

1. Have there been any charges of improprieties or ethics violations made against you in your professional capacity (as lawyers, and in Mark's case as an elected representative as well) in the last 10 years?

2. If so, please enumerate all of them (whether or not you feel they were legitimate).

3. How was each resolved (or are any not resolved)?

Larkin responded the next day: “No, I have never had an ethics or impropriety charge made against me.”

After I sent Meadows a reminder, he engaged in a discussion of how he wanted his answers to appear, although I assured him I would publish his complete answers. Once Meadows indicated he would not answer the questions for Eli, I told him I would reproduce our exchange and publish an article based on what I could find out independently. At this point, Meadows hastened to send out a message to his supporters. (Our exchange and his post to his list are both reproduced in the attached PDF.) That post to his supporters contains the following errors and contradictions, reported here in the order in which they appear:

• Meadows misspelled my name as "Alice Kreger."
• He misidentified our local non-commercial news cooperative as a blog.
• He told his supporters he considers me free to publish his answers, although in his email to me he had said I should refer my readers to his report for his answers.
• He said that my questions about the candidates’ ethics record “could only apply to me since my opponent has never been elected to office,” implying bias against him. In fact, as shown above, in first question I specified that Larkin and Meadows should both answer with regard to their legal careers.
• Oddly, he then went on to answer the first question with regard to his legal career, ("Not as an attorney.")
• He misrepresented our email exchange to his supporters. If you compare the actual exchange to the one he sent to his supporters, you will see that he initially tried to close the exchange by sending me a message telling me he wasn't going to answer my questions. To this, I responded that I would publish our exchange and do my own research and article. At that point, he resent his message, adding a paragraph, saying: "I will continue to answer your questions on my Meadows For Judge Report. I will add you to the listserv and you are free to refer your readers to my report for my answer to your questions."

As to the meat of the matter, last year the State News reported on Meadows' violation of House rules and questions about whether he also violated campaign finance laws. To his list, Meadows called the campaign finance violation question "a bogus claim." Meadows closed his reassurance to his list with "This is the only charge I am aware of."

But in fact, in the current race for 54-B judge, as mLive has reported, Meadows has also been accused of transgressing the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct. Meadows must know of this, because he answered mLive's questions about it. So it would appear the earlier charge is not, in fact, the only one he is aware of, although it is the only one of which he told his list recipients.

Note: I wish to again disclose here, as I have on all my 54-B race reporting, that during the primaries, I made a campaign contribution to Andrea Larkin and wrote an essay for Public Response as to why I think Mark Meadows would make a poor choice for judge.