State Employee Contradicts Helen Jones-Kelley

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that a state employee is contradicting Helen Jones-Kelley's account of the background check on Joe the Plumber.

Vanessa Niekamp said that when was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn't know she just had checked on "Joe the Plumber," who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain's example in a debate of an average American.

The senior manager would not learn about "Joe" for another week, when she said her boss informed her and directed her to write an e-mail stating her computer check was a legitimate inquiry.

The reason Niekamp said she was given for checking if there was a child-support case on Wurzelbacher does not match the reason given by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Jones-Kelley stated it is common practice to do background checks on people who have money and appear in the news.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. "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," she said today.

And if that's not bad enough...

On Oct. 23, Niekamp said Doug Thompson, deputy director for child support, told her she had checked on "Joe the Plumber." Thompson "literally demanded" that she write an e-mail to the agency's chief privacy officer stating she checked the case for child-support purposes, she said.

Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland who previously denied political motivations had no comment.

Helen Jones-Kelly: Joe the Plumber Checks "well meaning"

The Columbus Dispatch continues to dig into multiple stories it is breaking.

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 wrote the checks were "well-meaning," but misinterpreted amid the heated final weeks of a presidential election.

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?

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,"

McConnell a Registered Democrat

Michelle Malkin points out that a quick search of campaign donor records doesn't turn up Julie McConnell's name. A quick search of Ohio's registered voters in Lucas county shows McConnell is a registered Democrat though.

McConnell is the Toledo police records clerk who improperly looked up Joe the Plumber's information. Just doing her duty as a public servant.