State Police Investigation Announcement
Governor Martin O'Malley, Attorney General Stephen Sachs, Attorney General Doug Gansler
July 31, 2008
Governor O’Malley: Look, I want to thank everybody for being here. And I am -- we are joined here today by Attorney General Doug Gansler and Colonel Sheriden of the Maryland State Police and also former Attorney General Steve Sachs, who is no stranger to these halls. I want to thank you all for being here.
Recently in the news there were reports about an incident that took place over a 14 month period of time that involved an undercover from the State Police, involved in making reports on and monitoring groups that were opposed to the death penalty, opposed to the war. And in these times, of course, that raised a great deal of concern from citizens and from people throughout our State and also in the legislature and, indeed, even in the halls of Congress.
Colonel Sheriden conducted a preliminary review of this matter and reported to you his findings, I believe, about a week ago. In the meantime, I have had conversations with and consultations with our Attorney General Doug Gansler and after those conversations I decided to ask former Attorney General Steve Sachs and he has agreed to conduct an independent review over the next 30 to 60 days into the circumstances, the facts, around this particular incident that happened over a 14 month period of time under our predecessor.
And it is my hope that with openness, with transparency, with the professionalism that General Sachs has always brought to the practice of law and the service of the public, that an independent review will shed some greater light and also provide some better guidance for us as we move ahead in the future, in order to put in place safeguards, protocols, guidelines, things that would prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.
So having said that, I’d like to now thank, and ask to come up to say a couple of words, the former Attorney General of the great State of Maryland, Steve Sachs. The great Attorney General.
Mr. Sachs: Anyway, thank you very much, Governor, for the confidence in my ability and my judgment to ask me to perform this task. I was wondering how I was going to spend the month of August and you’ve helped me answer that.
I also want to note the readiness of Colonel Sheriden to cooperate fully in the inquiry that I’ve been asked to undertake. That cooperation has already begun and I’m grateful for it.
I will, of course, do my best to perform the task that the Governor has asked me to perform and to do it within the harsh time limits that he has imposed.
I have very little knowledge of this matter. I certainly have no prejudgment. As a matter of fact, I’ve been away for the last couple of weeks and only roughly know what has been in the press.
But I think I understand the Governor’s goals in all of this and I share them. They are, as Governor O’Malley has indicated, to discover the unvarnished truth about what happened and what didn’t happen to insure, so that he can take steps to insure, that the citizens of Maryland are able to pursue their interests, including expression of their opinions and the exercise of their Constitutional rights, unhobbled by officialdom and unshielded by official interference.
Another goal, and a very important one, that the Governor has and that I share is to insure that law enforcement is able and empowered to perform its legitimate vital public safety functions. And to guarantee public confidence in the integrity and the probity of its police officials. My hope is that the results of my inquiry will help promote those goals and be of assistance to Governor O’Malley in fulfilling them.
So there may be questions later, I don’t think I’m going to be in a position to say much of anything about what I don’t yet know, so -- but with that, Governor, thank you very much. And I’ll turn it over to whomever.
Governor O’Malley: General, thanks very -- thank you very, very much. I really appreciate your willingness to serve and to perform this review.
Let me ask Colonel Sheriden if he’d like to say a couple words.
Colonel Sheriden: Thank you, Governor. And, of course, like the Governor, we believe totally in the protection of the rights of our citizens. And bringing aboard General Sachs for this inquiry, I think, is a major step towards insuring the integrity of the process and the protection of our citizens’ rights and how they go about doing their business day-to-day.
Met yesterday with General Sachs. He’s a dedicated servant to the citizens, served a long time as Attorney General, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, and the Governor couldn’t have picked a better person for this. And we are going to cooperate fully, whatever General Sachs needs, he will get from us, because we want to make sure that this comes out and that we protect those rights that we, in law enforcement, are insuring day in and day out. And I can’t say more about that, but General Sachs, thank you very much for accepting this invitation from the Governor to keep August busy for yourself.
Governor O’Malley: Colonel, thank you. I’d like to ask Attorney General Gansler to come forward. He has been a terrific colleague in government and whenever issues arise and I have a need to talk to Maryland’s lawyer, the Attorney General always, always makes time to address the issues that we call upon him to address for us. He’s been a total professional and I have rarely worked with someone more courteous and more responsive in government. And I greatly appreciate his counsel on this matter and his willingness to help the former Attorney General’s staff to complete this review. Please welcome the great Attorney General of the State of Maryland, Attorney General Gansler.
Mr. Gansler: Thank you, Governor. General Sachs was the great Attorney General, I’m just trying to do the best I can.
Mr. Sachs: We should pick up the one between us.
Mr. Gansler: Yeah. We won’t -- that will be -- that happened -- he was the Attorney General during the time that this happened, General Curran, and he will be talked to. And I actually -- I have also publicly said -- and we’re not going to comment much about what happened, but to be clear, General Curran had no knowledge whatsoever of what -- of this practice at the time.
I’d like to start by congratulating the Governor for his openness and his transparency, because that’s what this is really all about. There were requests for documents made. Those documents were handed over immediately. There was no effort at all to cover-up anything.
What we know -- and I only talk of public matters at this point, because anything beyond that will be directed to General Sachs and his review. But what we do know is that there were some people that attended some meetings and some other things that were going on. There have been absolutely -- and I want to be clear about this -- there have been absolutely no allegations at this point of any illegal activity taking place.
The Governor had two ways to go. He could have then said, well, that’s the end of that, let’s move on and go to the next thing. Or he could do what he’s doing today, which is find one of the most respected legal minds in the State, a former United States Attorney for this State, the former Attorney General for this State, a man who has conducted a number of investigations on behalf of the State, and investigations on the other side as well, and asked him to use his time to conduct this investigation.
So I want to congratulate the Governor for doing that. And also Colonel Sheriden, who from the moment this came to light has been very open and honest and willing to participate in any way, shape or form that he’s asked.
The Governor alluded to it. We are -- this review body, which will be chaired by General Sachs, will be also staffed by, on loan from our office, Deputy Attorney General J.B. Howard and Assistant Attorney General Josh Auerbach. And those three will be conducting -- working with -- under the leadership of General Sachs. We expect people in Government, anyone that was involved, the police involved and others, to be forthright and candid. And we will learn what happened and at the end of the day we’ll know exactly what happened and if any laws were broken. Again, we do not know that that is the case now, that any laws were broken, but this is in an effort to make that determination.
With that, we’ll take any questions. And I think General Sachs was pretty clear that there are specific facts and allegations we will not be able to comment at great length on that at all at this time. That’s the very purpose for this 30 to 60 day review.
