This entire sordid affair of the Justices of the Virginia Supreme Court stealing money from the public desperately needs a little humor. Ms. Padden, the legal guru of the Supreme Court is a prime source for this diversion.
She has told me on many occasions that commuting is not reimburseable to the justices. I am convinced that she is correct.
Then she graciously told me that the justices have two offices can be reimbursed for “routine” travel from their home to the Supreme Court in Richmond. When I pointed out that “routine” means “commuting,” as defined by the IRS, the Supreme Court, and the Office of the Inspector Genjeral, she never mentioned “routine” again. And in an attempt to distance herseof from disclosing these $1 1/2 million around misappropriation of taxpayers’ hard earned money by our honorable justices, she declares that she doesn’t know what I mean by “routine,:” and refuses to respond to my requests for FOIA records of this “routine” commuting.
But the Supreme Court is, by no means, the only public body that hides their travel expenses. I am referring to none other than the Governor’s partner in providing transparency, the Honorable Jason Miyares, Attorney General of Virginia.
When I requested travel records from the Attorney General’s office, I was informed by Ms. Kimber Soto that there were so many thousands of records that it would take months to assemble them and cost thousands of dollars. Obviously, she was trying to throw me off the scent. However, it did not work, so Jason stepped in to brilliantly solve the problem and directed her to do an about face and declare that all the records had disappeared. So now take a look at two letters from April 29, 2022 and July 18, 2022.
I say “their” because what we have is a conspiracy that requires more than one person.
I’ll bet you hoped that this was the end of the story. But, indeed, this was just the beginning, and I did not want to give up on this very hot trail because the IRS says that I can receive an award of 30% of this obviously unreported income which I badly need for some recapped tires and a new pig or two.
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