
Lucas: While AG Campbell fights Trump, U.S. Attorney Foley fights corruption
The contrast is startling.
U.S. Attorney Leah Foley is doing the job that state Attorney General Andrea Campbell is failing to do.
And that is to investigate, round up and prosecute lawbreakers, whether they are politicians accused of political corruption or criminal illegal immigrants.
Foley’s record, in contrast to Campbell’s, is impressive.
Campbell, the state’s “chief law enforcement officer,” instead of going after illegal immigrant crime and criminals — and politicians on the take — has used her office to file suits against President Donald Trump.
At the pace she set, she is likely to break Gov. Maura Healey’s record of suing Trump a hundred times in four years during Trump’s first administration when Healey was attorney general.
In the meantime, Foley appears to have usurped Campbell’s role as the state’s “chief law enforcement officer” while Campbell, along with other Democrat attorneys general, pursues their legal jihad against Trump.
Meanwhile, cases of political corruption taking place under her very nose on Beacon Hill go unaddressed.
An example took place a week ago. While the U.S. Attorney’s office announced the arrest of Cape Cod Democrat Rep. Chris Flanagan, 37, for allegedly stealing funds from a trade association he worked for, Campbell was announcing still another suit against Trump.
Some of the money Flanagan allegedly stole went to finance his political campaign for the state Legislature, according to Foley. Foley said, “No one is entitled to power by way of fraud, and the people of Massachusetts deserve better.”
Campbell’s latest suit was over the Trump administration’s mandate to revoke visas and deport non-citizens involved in supporting terrorist groups like Hamas on college campuses.
While she had nothing to say about the Flanagan arrest, she said she was “proud to defend the rights of our international students and faculty who add to the rich dialogue of our campuses and to our global competitiveness as a nation.”
Campbell’s remarks came after Foley, in another federal — not state — investigation, announced that Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson would plead guilty to federal corruption charges.
It is alleged that Anderson initiated a kickback scheme in which she received a portion of a bonus from a staffer she hired.
It is another criminal investigation that Campbell’s criminal bureau could have pursued but did not.
Also, on Monday, two retired State Police troopers went on trial for allegedly scheming to sell commercial driving licenses to drivers who failed, or never took, the Commercial Driving License (CDL) test.
The former troopers, and a Brockton commercial driving school employee, allegedly participated in the endeavor, which saw people getting the CDL without passing the test.
The trial harkens back to a series of scandals involving the State Police, including overtime fraud, that took place when Gov. Maura Healey was attorney general and also busy suing Trump.
Back then, as now, the State Police investigations were conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s office, then headed by Andrew Lelling, and not the attorney general, even though the attorney general has a contingent of State Police detectives assigned to it.
There was a time when the attorney general concentrated on Massachusetts issues like political corruption, for instance, and not federal policy.
Only a few years ago, it was practically unthinkable for a Massachusetts attorney general to sue the president.
But it became common practice among Democrat attorneys general beginning when Trump first became president, and it continues today, even though most of the suits are nothing more than grandstand plays to damage him.
So, it is good that Massachusetts has Leah Foley around to do the work that Campbell will not do.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
State Rep. Christopher Flanagan, 37, of Dennis, (in white shirt), of the First Barnstable District, leave federal court in early April after being indicted on five counts of wire fraud and one count of falsification of records. (Chris Van Buskirk/Boston Herald)