TRENTON, N.J. — The only thing worse than hiring a man who betrayed the public’s trust might be lying about the circumstances behind his hire.
Former Passaic City Councilman Marcellus Jackson did jail time after accepting $26,000 in bribes as payment for influencing the fate of public insurance contracts.
Then he ended up in state government (Phil Murphy’s Department of Education) with a high-paying job and very little explanation except for a promise, from the governor himself, that such hires would be the “new norm.” A probe was demanded. 15 Democrats even signed onto a Republican measure to help prevent other ex-officials convicted of crimes from working their way back into the halls of power.
Now Jackson is gone (he resigned on Friday), and the story of how it happened is just as strange as the hiring itself:
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Murphy admin says it conducted a legal review on hiring disgraced former Passaic Councilman Marcellus Jackson. But state law and case law is pretty clear that people convicted of offenses touching on their offices are barred from public employment. https://t.co/bnvqy6bhfM
— Matt Friedman (@MattFriedmanNJ) September 28, 2018
… and he’s gone pic.twitter.com/fYvrmE1apO
— Matt Friedman (@MattFriedmanNJ) September 28, 2018
This is a big screw up. The Murphy administration said it conducted a legal review of Jackson’s hiring. Now it admits it wasn’t legal. https://t.co/3Os0kPDcwc
— Matt Friedman (@MattFriedmanNJ) September 28, 2018
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Murphy lied.
Just last week, the radical Democrat Governor told state media that Jackson had been hired in July 2018 after a legal review was conducted. Murphy also told reporters “we feel completely comfortable with the process that Marcellus went through” after news of the hire originally broke.
However, on Friday, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said his office only started looking at Jackson’s hiring last week; Gubir’s review determined that state law prohibited Jackson’s hiriong.
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