It was late one afternoon when the email went out, warning of "hot front page news" that could be a "big embarrassment" to Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.
The message came from an assistant attorney general, writing to alert her supervisor that a Baltimore lawyer was angry at the state health department lab for destroying blood test records of children with lead poisoning. This private attorney wasn't just any lawyer, her email said, but "a great supporter of the AG's governor aspirations" and "a good buddy" of Gansler's, who is widely viewed as harboring higher political ambitions.
The lawyer also told the government attorney to tell the state's lab director to stop destroying records, according to the email. And so she did, leaving a voice message that conveyed the private lawyer's "instructions," the email said.
Attorneys for the state never intended for the email to be made public. Details of it were contained in a report from the health department's inspector general about the lab's destruction of records, but were blacked out by government lawyers before the document was released. The redacted language was easily restored by The Baltimore Sun, by copying and pasting the document into a new file.
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