This may not be adequate. As the governor’s office has already acknowledged, the decision to switch Flint’s water source away from Detroit, for example, was made in June 2013. In other words, as Rachel noted on last night’s show, the key decisions were made before the time period reflected in Snyder’s emails.
When The Rachel Maddow Show asked the governor’s office whether the Flint-related emails from 2013 would also be publicly released, Snyder aides were non-committal.
Meanwhile, the materials that have been released are serious enough that Snyder may owe the public another apology or two. The New York Times reported this morning:
A top aide to Michigan’s governor referred to people raising questions about the quality of Flint’s water as an “anti-everything group.” Other critics were accused of turning complaints about water into a “political football.” And worrisome findings about lead by a concerned pediatrician were dismissed as “data,” in quotes. […][T]he documents provide a glimpse of state leaders who were at times dismissive of the concerns of residents, seemed eager to place responsibility with local government and, even as the scientific testing was hinting at a larger problem, were reluctant to acknowledge it.
In one particularly damning email from late September 2015, the governor’s then-chief of staff said he couldn’t “figure out why the state is responsible” for the Flint crisis.
Perhaps because Flint was under the control of an emergency manager appointed by the governor? Because state officials were responsible for policymaking decisions in the city of Flint? Because those officials did not report to the city’s residents, but rather, reported only to Rick Snyder?
As for the national reaction to the crisis, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz was willing to say the crisis in Flint is a “travesty” and the result of officials’ “ineptitude.”
Those comments, however, were more the exception than the rule. Most of the GOP presidential field has remained silent on Flint — Marco Rubio acted this week as if he had no idea what the story is even about — in ways that seem plainly indefensible.
Matt Latimer, a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, condemned their silence in an op-ed today, and contrasted Republicans’ indifference with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders speaking out forcefully on the issue.
