Florida AG Bill McCollum Hired Dr. George Rekers Against The Advice Of Own Staff

Florida's newspapers are keeping the pressure on state Attorney General Bill McCollum. Today the Sarasota Herald-Tribune revealed that McCollum hired Dr. George Rekers even though his own staff warned him strongly against it. Which proves, again, that McCollum is a liar, as he's previously he claimed that he only hired Rekers because his staff told him to.

E-mails released Thursday show that an attorney in McCollum's own office warned against hiring Rekers, whose testimony had been deemed suspect in an earlier Arkansas lawsuit that challenged a ban on placing foster children in homes with gay parents. Assistant Attorney General Valerie Martin wrote in a July 2007 e-mail that after talking to Arkansas officials and reviewing the background of the former University of South Carolina professor that she would "recommend NOT using him."

E-mails also show that during a conference call Martin -- who said the state considered more than 30 possible expert witnesses -- was ordered to hire Rekers "against my strong cautions." The e-mails were included in public records that were obtained from McCollum's office detailing the selection and payment of Rekers. McCollum said he agreed to release the records even though the lawsuit is still on appeal so the public could see "the entire process" used in selecting Rekers. McCollum on Thursday again defended the hiring of Rekers and said that one of the reasons he was hired is that he had been used as an expert witness in a previous federal lawsuit that had challenged the ban. Other attorneys in his office believed Rekers could help if the case wound up getting appealed. "There were discussions and there were differences of opinion among our attorneys over the hiring of this expert witness. There was a decision made ultimately by me," said McCollum.

McCollum told the paper yesterday: "I think there should be no doubt about the fact that he actually performed the function that he was asked to do, he did the work. This is not a case of overpaying him, he was paid a reasonable fee." Yes, Bill. It's "reasonable" to pay somebody over $120,000 to rip apart Florida's gay families.

I'm heartened that Florida's mainstream media is being so dogged in their pursuit of this story and that McCollum is still being forced to talk about gay male prostitution and its connection to the Family Research Council's Dr. George Rekers.

UPDATE: Nadine Smith at Equality Florida sends us the links to the Rekers documents they requested from the state of Florida. She warns that there are tens of thousands of pages within. If anybody has the time, dig in and see if you can unearth some good dirt. The various documents on McCollum’s hiring of Rekers can be downloaded here: McCollum’s Office. Department of Children & Families.