Chief electoral officer Paul Reynolds – under fire over the Progressive Conservative Party election spending scandal - issued a written statement late Tuesday attempting to justify his inaction in the case.
In the statement, Reynolds now claims he conducted a cursory review prior to concluding nothing further needed to be done. The statement contains a series of non sequiturs - colloquially known as red herrings - that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Reynolds, a former president of the Progressive Conservative Party and a district PC party official at the time of his appointment, apparently spoke only to unidentified representatives of the PC party. There is no indication of when he spoke with the unnamed individuals.
The statement bears a time stamp of 4:55 PM, but as of 6:53 PM, the statement was not available on the provincial government website.
More to follow, once the statement is available online.
D'oh Update: Reynolds pulled a real Homer moment with this statement, as will become plain in the days ahead. Let's just start out with issuing the statement at the end of the day. In light of the recent boner play at Eastern Health, this one is sure to earn the scorn of local reporters.
For those who are looking for some evening entertainment, the ever-reliable labradore has posted a copy of the release which - as of almost 9:30 PM Newfoundland time is still not available at the government website.
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