{"id":7760,"date":"2021-01-13T20:58:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T20:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=149837"},"modified":"2021-01-13T20:58:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T20:58:41","slug":"how-a-flurry-of-suspicious-phone-calls-set-investigators-on-rick-snyders-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/13\/how-a-flurry-of-suspicious-phone-calls-set-investigators-on-rick-snyders-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Flurry of Suspicious Phone Calls Set Investigators on Rick Snyder’s Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Former Michigan<\/u> Gov. Rick Snyder knew about a Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak in Flint as early as October 2014, when there was still a significant amount of time to save lives. That was the accusation of investigators looking into the Flint water crisis, according to documents compiled as part of a three-year investigation and obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported<\/a> that Snyder, as well as former Michigan health department director Nick Lyon, and Snyder\u2019s top adviser Richard Baird, will be charged by the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, over their roles in the Flint water crisis.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, reports surfaced <\/a>that Snyder would be charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor. The Michigan penal code lists a maximum penalty for willful neglect as a year in prison or a fine of $1,000. Charges for Lyon and Baird have not yet been made public.<\/p>\n

But, in addition to willful neglect, investigators working on the case prior to Nessel had evidence to charge Snyder with misconduct in office, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation and documents obtained by The Intercept. The criminal team also considered an  involuntary manslaughter case, according to multiple sources, but had not yet concluded their investigation when the majority of the team was dismissed by new AG Nessel, who announced a revamped investigation in 2019.<\/p>\n

According to the findings of an investigation launched by Nessel\u2019s predecessor, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette, Snyder was involved in a mad dash of phone calls in October 2014 at the same time the deadly Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak in Flint was raising alarm bells among state health and environmental officials \u2014 yet still unknown to the Flint residents drinking and bathing in Flint River water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The criminal investigation was originally launched in 2016 when Schuette named a special prosecutor, Todd Flood, to run the investigation. That avalanche of calls, uncovered by investigators, included multiple conversations between Snyder, his chief of staff, and the state\u2019s health department director. Other evidence from the same period \u2014 including briefings addressed to the governor that mentioned Flint\u2019s Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak \u2014 led prosecutors to conclude the calls were about the outbreak, which was unfolding in real time.<\/p>\n

Snyder, the evidence suggests, learned of the outbreak just weeks before his reelection in 2014. In 2016, Snyder testified to Congress that he first learned of Flint\u2019s Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak that January and held a press conference the next day. Yet in October 2017, Harvey Hollins, director of the state\u2019s Office of Urban Initiatives, testified <\/a>that he had informed Snyder of Flint\u2019s Legionnaires\u2019 issues in December 2015.<\/p>\n

Lead poisoning of children and adults, stemming from a switch of the city water source to the Flint River in 2014, dominated national headlines, but the Legionnaires\u2019 disease outbreak was a more acute disaster that killed Flint residents. While the official death toll from the Legionnaires\u2019 outbreak was 12, a PBS \u201cFrontline\u201d investigation<\/a> found a 43 percent increase in pneumonia deaths in Flint during the 18 months the city received drinking water from the Flint River. PBS reported that scientists believed some of those 115 pneumonia deaths could be attributed<\/a> to Legionnaires\u2019 disease, which has similar symptoms to pneumonia and often is misdiagnosed as such.<\/p>\n

The Attorney General\u2019s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on pending charges against Snyder and others. <\/span>Multiple requests to Snyder and Lyon received no response. In response to The Intercept\u2019s inquiries, Snyder\u2019s chief of staff Dennis Muchmore said he was \u201cnot aware\u201d of the calls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Witness Maryanne Tribble holds a photo of her father, John Snyder, who died of Legionnaires\u2019 disease in 2015, during the preliminary examination of Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, in Genesee County District Court in Flint, Mich., on Nov. 6, 2017.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Terray Sylvester\/The Flint Journal-MLive.com\/AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By October 2014,<\/u> six months after April\u2019s Flint River switch, Flint residents had been publicly complaining for months about odorous, discolored water coming from from their taps. Residents, including children, were showing city officials rashes spreading across their bodies. In August and September, Flint had issued a boil water advisory. As a result, Snyder requested a briefing on Flint\u2019s water problems; on October 1, that briefing<\/a>, which listed a waterborne disease outbreak as a trigger that could cause a boil water alert, was delivered to the governor. By October 13, state health department epidemiologist Shannon Johnson authored an email <\/a>sharing her research and hypothesis that the \u201csource of the outbreak may be the Flint municipal water.\u201d<\/p>\n

A day later, on October 14, Valerie Brader, environmental adviser and legal counsel to Snyder, wrote an \u201curgent\u201d email<\/a> to Muchmore, Snyder\u2019s chief of staff, and other top officials pleading for Flint to discontinue use of the Flint River and return to Detroit\u2019s water system. In a follow-up conference call between Brader, Richard Baird, who was known as Snyder\u2019s right-hand man, and Darnell Earley, Flint\u2019s emergency manager appointed by Snyder, Brader was told it would be too costly<\/a> to switch Flint back to Detroit\u2019s water system and that Flint\u2019s water woes would be remedied. As reported<\/a> in Vice News, after the call, Baird threatened Brader to not send anymore emails expressing Flint water concerns.<\/p>\n

But it was October 16 and 17 that stood out to investigators, and seemed to indicate that Snyder knew about dangerous bacteria in Flint\u2019s water in October 2014: 16 months earlier than he testified to Congress.<\/p>\n

The Intercept obtained phone records from search warrants that showed an all-out blitz of calls between Snyder, Muchmore, and the soon-to-be Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon.<\/p>\n

According to phone records, on October 16 and 17, Muchmore and Lyon spoke nine times \u2014 far more frequently than they communicated before or since. After four of those calls, Muchmore immediately, or soon after, called Snyder. Before those calls, investigators found that Lyon and Muchmore had only spoken once via phone dating back to 2013: in August 2014, the same month McLaren Hospital, a member of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, first detected<\/a> Legionella bacteria in their water supply.<\/p>\n

Calls on October 16:<\/p>\n