TORPY: Atlanta’s corruption watchdog in hot water - for doing her job

I don’t know how happy then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and her City Council comrades were about creating the position. But they were maneuvered into smiling and voting unanimously because what public official wants to go up against integrity?

Just try and vote “Nope” on that.

Manigault is in her fourth year on the job and is now in a firestorm of her own making. It’s either because she’s doing her job too well. Or, her critics say, she’s running roughshod while doing it.

Last month, Mayor Andre Dickens and the City Council created a task force to, ostensibly, stripe the lines on the highway of where Manigault’s office can — and more importantly — can’t go.

Manigault says the effort is to hamstring the office from conducting vigorous prosecutions. The Dickensonians say they are merely clarifying operating rules.

Credit: Atlanta city TV

Credit: Atlanta city TV

In May, Manigault approached the City Council during its public comment session and told the council members there were forces afoot trying to kneecap her operation. She called it a “concerted effort to interfere” with her investigations.

She didn’t name names. But now the gloves are off.

In a video on her office’s city website, Manigault notes that her office was born of scandal, adding: “But now, the mayor and his friends on the City Council want to pass legislation to keep the OIG from doing its job. Why? Because the Office of Inspector General is doing exactly what we were hired to do.

“They don’t want the accountability and transparency that this office brings.”

She said in August her office “released findings about council members and a powerful lobbyist.” Almost immediately, she said, Dickens’ office concocted a plan “to shut us down.”

To help underline her point, she added, again, on her city website: “The mayor and his friends on City Council have been telling lies about this office and the way we do our work.”

Ouch.

Dickens’ office did not want to publicly respond to the Inspector General’s public comments. His people say he wants to wait until the Task Force comes up with recommendations about how to change that office’s rules of operation. The Task Force is made up of local legal luminaries like former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears and former U.S. Attorney Richard Deane.

It would seem Dickens might not be happy with Manigault or her office. One of the first big splashes from the OIG’s office was a report last year critical of the The Senior Ball, widely known as the Mayor’s Senior Ball. The report was critical of the office bypassing normal spending protocols and processing a $120,000 payment to the Hyatt Regency as a “professional courtesy.”

The report found that the mayor’s office booked rooms for members of Dickens’ family, including his mom. Dickens later repaid the hotel bills.

At a Task Force meeting last month, Odie Donald, the mayor’s chief of staff, made note of the Senior Ball — with a chart. He said Manigault issued a press release of her findings just hours after turning it over to Dicken’s office.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Donald was the mayoral aide who marched the plan over to the City Council for them to create the Task Force.

The mayor’s office has contended that investigators are confiscating the phones and computers of employees, that they are prohibiting the subjects of investigations from having legal counsel and there is no real criteria as to why an investigation is started.

Donald told the Task Force that there’s been “violation of personal space,” that employees are “approached at home off the clock” to be interviewed.

He added he’s “not sure if those things had fully happened but we got reports of those.”

Manigault told me that the employees questioned at home were working remotely from City Hall and there was no way to reach them otherwise. She said her office does not want interviewees using city attorneys because that would be a conflict of interest.

The question remains, who pays for the attorneys of those being questioned? Remember, what they say can be used against them.

I was told the OIG’s office bought “mini spy cameras,” pen cameras and nanny cams this year. She told me that’s true, that the cameras can be used for investigations, like seeing if someone is stealing from a breakroom.

In conversations with city and elected officials, there’s a feeling Manigault has gone rogue, that she’s obsessed with the job and wants to make a name for herself. However, those people will not speak publicly because they don’t want to get crossways with someone who has subpoena power.

And mini spy cams.