Haley Barbour's Blind Trust Pokes Justice In The Eye

Bloomberg News brings us another investigative article on Barbour's finances:

The blind trust document he signed about six weeks later says that on Jan. 13, 2004, the day he took office, Barbour still had a stake worth $786,666 in the publicly traded parent company of Barbour Griffith & Rogers Inc., as well as pension and profit-sharing plan benefits from the lobby firm.

A copy of the notarized trust agreement, obtained from an individual who requested anonymity, says Barbour receives $25,000 per month, or $300,000 a year, from it. He lists the trust in his annual Mississippi ethics filing as his only source of income outside his $122,160 salary as governor.

Wow, he gets to be governor and collect a half million each year. (I do realize that he took the office at great personal sacrifice (sarcasm) to his own well-being and income) I'd like to know what is included in the "profit sharing" portion of the "blind" trust.

Barbour's blind trust ``is allowing him to hide things,'' said Bob Stern, president of Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies, which studies ethics and campaign laws. ``For him then to not disclose the sources of income from it -- then actually we're losing disclosure.''

If Mississippi law doesn't specifically provide for shielding a trust's income sources from disclosure, Barbour should list them on his annual disclosure form, said Stern, who has advised the state of California on ethics laws.

Barbour has never been someone for open government and transparency. After out of state groups dumped several million dollars into political advertising in the state prior to Barbour's election the legislature acted with a simple commonsense rule. If you want to spend money on political advertising in our state you would have to disclose your donors. The bill passed both houses and Barbour vetoed it. Nearly all the spending had benefited Republicans so he didn't care if they were anonymous.

The lobbying firm in Washington that still bears Barbour's name represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, 2005, according to federal lobbying filings, a filing with the state of Mississippi and senior officials of two of the clients.
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"I'm not sure whether the trustee continues to take that money,'' Brunini said. "If I was the trustee, I might go into that company and make a deal to cash that out and invest it in some other way."

Brunini's idea looks like it makes sense. It's too bad the good governor didn't think to cut those ties. Until the contents of his trust are available for public scrutiny, the questions will and should remain concerning whether the payments he receives influence his decisions in office whether he supposedly knows about them or not.