Is it just me or is that nose getting longer?
Meanwhile Fallin's Emails Prove That She Lied
About the Bates/Jennifer Chance Scandal
Back when the Jennifer Chance Scandal erupted over Chance steering clemency applications to her husband Governor Mary Fallin claimed dismay and shock that Jennifer Chance, her then Chief Counsel was involved in the Bates clemency attempt. However recent emails released from the Governor's office, Mary Fallin's personal emails no less, show that Fallin actually was asked to intervene by a neighbor of one of Bate's daughters. The neighbor was a long time friend of Mary Fallin's sister in law. Bates was handed a four year prison sentence for the killing of a suspect where the octogenarian reserve deputy mistook his gun for his taser, shooting a man in the back while the man was held down on the ground by two other deputies. But before the sentence was even given Fallin had asked her staff to "look into" the Bates affair at the behest of her sister in law.
Leslie McCrary, one of Bates daughters, had emailed Fallin's sister in law Jane Vanfossen who forwarded it to Fallin asking for advice. Fallin forwarded the email to then deputy general counsel Jennifer Chance asking "Did we check this yet?" The next day Fallin emailed her sister in law to say that Chance would call the Bates family and added that Chance had been researching the case. Fallin later forwarded Chance another email from the sister in law containing a lengthy plea for help.
Chance responded to Fallin that "we will take care of her." and wrote back to McCrary saying that the governor can't intervene at the district or appellate court level, meaning that only a clemency hearing would be possible.
The Tulsa World had ferreted out the emails after an Open Records/Freedom of Information request. The emails directly contradict what the Governor's office had said after Jennifer Chance had resigned after being caught enriching her husband by forwarding clemency requests for Bates. Her husband Derek Chance had charged the Bates family $25,000 to file a clemency request that was later denied. The Bates family must have thought the fix was in because they later complained bitterly. But the important part of this was Fallin's statement that she learned of the Bates/Jennifer Chance scandal only after Jennifer Chance resigned over the scandal. Meanwhile a lawyer representing Jennifer Chance called the allegations false, that Chance had left to pursue other opportunities.
So actually Mary Fallin knew months before that Jennifer Chance had passed the Bates clemency case to her husband Derek Chance and that was confirmed by a September 17th 2016 email from the Bates daughter where she expressed thanks and described what had occurred so far. She specifically stated that they had hired Derek Chance in the email that was forwarded to Fallin through the sister in law friend. Fallin then forwarded that same email to Jennifer Chance two days later, mentioning a phone call from the sister in law a few days earlier.
Meanwhile Fallin's spokesperson continues to claim that the Bates sought out Derek Chance on their own accord and that Jennifer Chance approached the Ethics Commission General Counsel to see if "the Bates family was appropriate". The Governor's office continues to hide behind their policy of not commenting on personnel issues while the Bates' lawyer claims that Jennifer Chance never suggested that her husband be hired.
So what is the big story? None actually, but it is a confirmation of what we have said since 2010. Fallin is a consummate liar and corrupt as the rest of the crooks at 23rd and Lincoln. What remains to be seen is if the news media will actually spread this story and let the cat out of the bag.
