Snyder Next Flint Water Crisis Criminal Target? 5 Op-Ed Observations

FLINT, MI — After last week’s bombshell announcement that five people, including the chief of the state health department, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter over the handling of the Flint water crisis, the so-called elephant in the room is whether Gov. Rick Snyder will be charged.

Speculation has been ripe for months that Snyder might be charged as the investigation into Flint’s lead crisis and a deadly legionnaire’s disease outbreak closes in on the upper echelons of Michigan state government. Asked at a Wednesday news conference to announce the latest round of charges if Snyder would be charged, Attorney General Bill Schuette left the door open just a bit.

So far, 15 people state and local officials and employees have been criminally charged. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Flint Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon and four others previously charged in the investigation now face involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Robert Skidmore, who died of legionnaire’s disease. Dr. Eden Wells, the agency’s medical director, is charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a police officer, and Lyon also is charged with misconduct in office. Snyder, a Republican, has stood behind the two MDHHS employees, refusing to fire them. Schuette has said Lyon and Wells should resign.

Charging Snyder could be a risky move for Schuette. Proving involuntary manslaughter in Flint isn’t a given, and if Schuette can’t get convictions in the five Flint manslaughter charges, he would have difficulty convicting Snyder.

“Some ask, ‘Why aren't you charging Gov. Snyder?’”Schuette said at the news conference, explaining, “But we only file charges when probable cause that a crime has been committed is established.”

Here are five observations about the matter from the opinion pages of Michigan newspapers:

1. The door is still open: At last Wednesday’s news conference, Schuette said there was no probable cause to charge Snyder “at this time.” Pressed in an editorial board meeting with The Detroit News to elaborate, Schuette said he only wanted to clarify the investigation as it relates to Snyder and said it was never his intent to put Snyder under a cloud of suspicion.

Snyder so far hasn’t agreed to be interviewed by Flint investigators, who include Special Prosecutor Todd Flood and Lead Investigator Andy Arena. Schuette again was vague when asked if a subpoena would be issued to compel the governor to talk with investigators.

“We have no plans to issue a subpoena today,” he told The Detroit News editorial board.

See Also

• Involuntary Manslaughter Charges Against 5 In Flint Water Crisis Investigation
• 'Enjoy Nice, Brown Water': Steve Harvey To Flint Radio Show Caller

But speculation is building among opinion leaders that Snyder could be the 16th person snared in the far-reaching investigation.

2. The next shoe to drop: “Today, Snyder’s jeopardy is palpable — a liability that imperils his legacy as well as his agenda. What was once unthinkable seems more and more like the next shoe waiting to drop,” wrote Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson.

3. Sitting at the top of the house of cards: Rochelle Riley, another Free Press columnist, wrote that justice for Flint could mean charges against Snyder. “... The Flint water crisis persists, now in its third year, because of poor leadership from the top of the house of cards,” Riley wrote. “And sitting atop that house is the governor.”

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• From what you know of the Flint water crisis investigation, should Gov. Rick Snyder be criminally charged?

4. Nowhere to go but up: In an editorial, the Free Press called the Schuette team investigation “a seismic restructuring of unwritten rules that promise that things like this don’t happen to people like that (emphasis provided).”

“And its reach into the governor’s office, to a member of the cabinet, reorders the possible scope of Schuette’s endeavor. His investigation has nowhere to go from here but up — to the level of chief of staff or the governor himself. If either is the subject of criminal charges, it would mean a necessary premature end to his waning administration.”

5. The other elephant in the room: There’s another elephant in the room, of course — whether Schuette is exploiting the Flint water crisis investigation to bolster his expected campaign for the Republican nomination for governor in 2018. Snyder is term-limited.

“I don’t care about the politics,” Schuette told The Detroit News editorial board. “My job is to enforce the law. Those who say this is politically motivated, that is just absolute nonsense.”

Photo of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in 2016 Flint Water Crisis testimony before Congress by Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images