|
By Todd Shepherd
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office withheld rows of metadata in response to a document request from this organization — a striking departure from how it handled a similar request by another reporter well over a year earlier. The inconsistency again suggests that the administration may be selectively applying transparency rules when it comes to scrutiny of the Mike Vereb scandal.
The finding comes just weeks after Broad + Liberty reported that the Shapiro administration deleted the email account of the young woman deputy who accused Mike Vereb of workplace sexual harassment — while preserving the accounts of other former staffers. Together, the reports raise new questions about whether the administration is selectively withholding or deleting records tied to the scandal.
Why It Matters. This practice of deleting entire rows of data rather than redacting them stands in sharp contrast to a records request from Spotlight PA reporter Stephen Caruso.
In August 2023, Caruso requested all metadata for a single month for the governor’s chief of staff.
In the appeal that followed, the Office of Open Records noted that the metadata log contained in excess of 5,000 entries. The subject line for 255 of those might “reveal privileged communications,” and “four additional subject lines that reflect internal, predecisional deliberations of various topics, and three subject lines that relate to a noncriminal investigation.”
Yet for all of that privileged information identified — privilege being the same exemption the office applied to the Broad + Liberty request — it seems clear from the OOR final determination on Caruso’s request that the office only applied redactions. Nothing in the final determination would appear to indicate that the office deleted entire rows of data.
Meanwhile, the governor’s office still refuses to answer the key question: When, exactly, was the email account for the aide deleted?
Continue Reading
|
