What Miller Did: An Update. With Hearsay!

Jim Whitaker accused Joe Miller of a very serious, illegal use of Fairbanks North Star Borough computers. Local Republican leaders like Ralph Seekins, and State Party Chair Randy Ruedrich, responded by basically accusing Whitaker of lying. After all, Ruedrich said, Whitaker came out in support of Presidential candidate Obama; how can you believe him. To a certain kind of Republican, that line of illogic apparently makes sense. But it’s all hearsay. Ruedrich and Seekins don’t actually know anything; they weren’t at the Borough meetings. They haven’t seen Miller’s personnel file.

WC read still more hearsay in this morning’s News-Miner, but it’s hearsay from an unusual and possibly credible source. The News-Miner reports:

Mike Rostad, a longtime freelance religion and personalities columnist for the Kodiak Daily Mirror and a Republican and Tea Party activist in Kodiak, sent an e-mail to 10 people late Thursday in which he details a call he said he received from Rex Miller, the father of the Republican Senate nominee.

So a Kodiak Tea Bagger talked to Joe Miller’s dad. Joe Miller’s dad, Rex Miller, wasn’t present either, but if he got this story from Joe Miller, then it’s credible hearsay. Rostad, not so much, but it’s one Tea Bagger talking about another Tea Bagger, so WC is inclined to talk about it, even though no court would consider letting it in as evidence.

Rostad, in turn, sent an email to ten people describing his conversation with Rex Miller. And, inevitably, one of those ten made it completely public. So here’s the News-Miner’s version of Mike Rostad’s version of Rex Miller’s version of Joe Miller’s version of Jim Whitaker’s accusation:

-> It’s true <-

Here’s the money quote:

“One noon hour, on his own time at the borough, Joe participated in an online poll voting against Randy,” Rostad wrote in the e-mail, recounting the Thursday morning conversation he said he had with Rex Miller. “He used four office computers in the office to do it, thinking this was his chance to boost numbers to get rid of Randy. He emptied the cache files on the computers so the users wouldn’t know what he had done.”

WC is glad that Miller committed his felonies on his lunch hour and not on the Borough clock. However, it’s irrelevant to the real issue. Note that Joe Miller wiped the computers’ cache files afterwards. That’s the one of the places where a computer user leaves “digital fingerprints” of what he or she has done. (Not the only one, Joe.) And that’s very good evidence that Miller knew what he was doing was wrong. He was attempting to conceal the fact a crime had taken place. He was trying to wipe the fingerprints off of the crime scene. That’s certainly evidence he knew he’d done something criminal. Oh,and that’s a separate crime, by the way. Tampering with Evidence, AS 11.56.610, and possibly Tampering with a Public Record, AS 11.56.820.

And can you imagine Randy Ruedrich’s outrage if someone suggested a Democrat had stuffed the ballot box like that?

It’s amusing to see Republicans apparently working at cross-purposes. Republican Mike Rostad giving more credibility to Whitaker’s claims, all while Ruedrich and Seekins are trying to destroy that credibility. But it’s sad to see that there are no Republicans doing the right thing. We know what Ted Stevens would have done in this situation, because he had the courage to do it in his own life. Ted Stevens would have said, “Get the whole story out and let the people decide.” No Republican but Jim Whitaker has said that. No other Republican leader WC has seen has called for Joe Miller to make his personnel file public. Don’t you wonder why that is?

And, specifically, Joe Miller hasn’t done that. Joe Miller continues to stonewall the press, the voters and Alaska. There’s strong evidence – admittedly, hearsay, but strong hearsay – that Joe Miller is an unindicted felon. Who admitted his crimes to his own father – how else would his father know? But there’s still 35% of Alaskans who claim they will vote for him?

Wow.