AG Watch

Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist is on the clock. His office has one week to “show cause why this court should not impose sanctions against it and its counsel of record,” according to an order issued by Leon County Circuit Judge Thomas H. Bateman. Judge Bateman said that Crist’s office was a “non-party interloper” impeding the court.

We might have written, “AG, what you are doing is unnecessary and wastes our resources. Buzz off,” but the judge’s formulation works well enough.

Too bad a judge didn’t intervene similarly in Massachusetts. There, Attorney General Tom Reilly released this gem of a statement,

“Although a review of the Fleet Bank account closures and other information Fleet provided did not show a pattern of discrimination against customers with Arab and South Asian descent, Bank of America has agreed to inform three of the four complainants that they are welcome to reopen their accounts. Bank of America will also pay AG Reilly’s office $50,000 to create a brochure and video on consumer and financial awareness geared toward the Arab-American and Muslim communities.”

Let’s get this straight: Reilly blew a wad of taxpayer cash to review and confirm that nothing was happening and then took $50,000 from honest bank users to ensure that something that wasn’t happening continued to not happen?

Thank you for interloping, Misters Attorney General. We didn’t know what to do with that money and time, the indecision makes us nauseated, and we probably would have just squandered all on gamblin’ and whiskey-drinkin’. You’ve proved the old saying true, “Waste it before it gets wasted.”