No matter who you support for mayor, the way City Council is investigating one of its members seems to have been designed by the Democrat Party.
It was expected that the JEA scandal somehow would be an issue in the mayor’s race, but the latest twist has a distinct odor.
Council Member LeAnna Cumber left out information when she filed a financial disclosure with the council. She did it for a good reason. The FBI had asked that the JEA investigation in which her husband is a key witness not be discussed.
But now the council president, has re-opened the JEA investigation to look at Cumber’s omission and appointed Rory Diamond, Nick Howland, Sam Newby and Michael Boylan to the committee.
Is there a common thread among the players? You bet.
Freeman, Diamond, Howland, Newby and Boylan are linked to Mr. Big in Jacksonville politics – Tim Baker.
Who is a Baker client? Daniel Davis, a candidate for mayor.
Who is running a strong campaign against Davis? Cumber.
Who is not a client of Baker? Cumber. (She had retained him briefly when she ran for the council in 2018.)
This looks as sleazy as the Democrat Party’s impeachments of Donald Trump, which were based on lies and vengeance for his crime of defeating Hillary Clinton and in the hope of preventing him from defeating Joe Biden.
It isn’t even clear that the council has the authority to do this investigation. But even if it does, it could find a way that doesn’t seem like an obvious political hit.
If it were a hit, the timing would be perfect. The investigation could be conducted in a way that would provide an ongoing string of media reports intended to blacken Cumber’s name. The Democrat media would be only too happy to co-operate.
At a press conference, Cumber deplored the attacks on her family by Davis and said, “My family had no financial interest of any kind in anything related to selling JEA…”
“The formation of this committee is clearly a political attack, unprecedented in the history of consolidation government.”
Cumber said the biggest beneficiary of the aborted JEA sale was Davis and the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, who got more than $350,000 to promote the sale. Davis is the head of the chamber.
When Republicans get too nasty, Democrats are the beneficiaries.
