Time for Answers: Taxpayers Deserve to Know Why Whitmer Paid for Health Director’s Silence
Freedom Fund Demands Governor, Gordon Come Clean
LANSING, MI, March 19, 2021 – The Michigan Freedom Fund today demanded Governor Gretchen Whitmer publicly and formally come clean about the resignation of former Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon, and his time leading the department responsible for the state’s response to COVID-19.
Asked Tony Daunt: ”What did the Governor spend $155,000 tax dollars to cover up? Whitmer’s claim that she’ll waive a non-disclosure agreement is absolutely meaningless, unless it comes with answers to the tough questions she and Gordon have ducked by hiding behind their agreement. The time for silence is over. Now’s the time for answers.”
Critical questions the Governor and Robert Gordon must answer today include:
1) Will Gordon attend the upcoming House Oversight Committee hearing, or comply with a subpoena to testify?
2) What precipitated Gordon’s abrupt resignation?
3) Will Gordon return the $155,000 in taxpayer dollars Whitmer paid him to keep quiet? Will Gray?
4) Was Gordon terminated, as Democratic State Senate Jeff Irwin alleged, because the Governor was enacting policies that conflicted with health department guidance?
5) What other decisions were made by Governor Whitmer that flew in the face of the “data and metrics” she claimed to follow throughout the past year?
6) Was the cover-up deal Governor Whitmer’s idea? If not, who in her department suggested buying Gordon’s silence with $155,000 in taxpayer funds?
7) Did Gordon agree or disagree with Governor Whitmer’s decision to send COVID-19 patients into nursing homes instead of into empty field hospitals or other safe facilities?
8) Will Gordon explain his support or opposition to the Governor’s nursing home policy?
9) Will Whitmer also waive the hush money non-disclosure deal with Steve Gray? If not, why not?
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