Helen Jones-Kelley, the registered Democrat and Obama contributor, OK'd the background checks on Joe the Plumber in her role as the Ohio Director of Job and Family Services. The checks were even more extensive than originally revealed.
Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed yesterday that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.
The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.
She is sticking by her story that it's her duty to do background checks on anyone in the news who says they have money.
"Given our understanding that Mr. Wurzelbacher had publicly indicated that he had the means to purchase a substantial business enterprise, ODJFS, consistent with past departmental practice, checked confidential databases ," she wrote...Jones-Kelley stated that the results remained confidential. Anyone want to take a bet on how confidential they would have remained if they had turned up something?
Jones-Kelley wrote the checks were "well-meaning," but misinterpreted amid the heated final weeks of a presidential election.
And people wonder why the source of the L.A. Times tape won't come forward and provide it to someone else.
UPDATE 10/31: A state employee contradicts Jones-Kelley's account: "I've never done that before, I don't know of anybody in my office who does that and I don't remember anyone ever doing that,"
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