Nickles Refuses Subpoena on Wiggins Firing
NOTE FROM LL: This item was originally posted at 1:12 p.m. Wednesday, but due to a technical issue, it was removed from the site hours later. Reposting here in full.
Today, in a letter [PDF] to Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry and his council colleagues, Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles slapped back attempts to subpoena records related to the circumstances surrounding the firing of Grayce Wiggins, who had been the District’s rent administrator.
Barry’s housing committee had sent the subpoenas in the past several weeks demanding documents related to Wiggins’ firing, as well as sworn statements from Wiggins’ supervisors at the Department of Housing and Community Development. Nickles’ letter says the employees “respectfully decline to appear, or produce the referenced documents” upon advice from Nickles’ office.
At a Sept. 25 hearing on the matter, Nickles had promised councilmembers the opportunity to review Wiggins’ personnel records in a private session, originally scheduled for the 29th. According to the letter, that meeting never happened, and Nickles had forwarded a list of eight conditions that had to be agreed to before the file and other documents would be released—essentially, that they would not be released to the public. Those conditions were not signed, Nickles says in his letter, and before the meeting could be rescheduled, the subpoenas were issued. Nickles writes Barry that such a stance is “at odds with the earlier impression you gave me that we were going to meet to work things out in a cooperative and informative spirit.”
The 10-page letter cites a number of legal bases for the decision, including deliberative process privilege, attorney-client privilege, executive communications privilege, restrictions on personnel records, and the defamation tort (citing a recent D.C. Court of Appeals decision on the issue).
Download the Nickles letter [PDF]
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1:22 pm
Mr. Nickles's letter citing Clampitt v. American University case to assert the necessity not to disclose the documents, his reason is once it is diclosed , it might subject the government to liability for defamation.
One thing I have difficulty to understand Mr. Nickle's reasoning in his letter, with all due respect:
If the decision of the DC Government in firing Wiggins is correct, even if the files are disclosed, there shall be no cause for Wiggins to sue the government for defamation.
If the government's decision is wrong, there might be cause for Wiggins to sue the government---if the government is wrong in making the firing decision, why they shall not be subject to liability? Either defamation, or any other type of liability?
1:36 pm
Is the disclosure of documents in Council investigation process privileged too? I imagined so.
if so, DC government will not be subject to defamation liability, as long as the Government officials( employer ) do not make premature comments about Ms Wiggins to media, like in clampitt's case.
3:54 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061903679.html