Conflict of interest for Christine Todd Whitman?

I figured since she's on the hot seat, people may be interested in reading this.

The EPA's ombudsman says Whitman muzzled him for criticizing a sweetheart Superfund settlement with a big investor in her husband's firm.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Hertsgaard

Jan. 14, 2002 | The ombudsman for the Environmental Protection Agency says he was punished by administrator Christine Todd Whitman after he opposed an agreement to sharply limit the amount of money financial titan Citigroup -- a principal investor in Whitman's husband's venture capital firm -- would have to pay in a controversial Superfund cleanup case.

EPA ombudsman Robert J. Martin, who functions as the agency's public interest advocate, alleges that Whitman ordered his office reassigned within the EPA bureaucracy and stripped of its independence after he opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost.

Martin made the conflict of interest charge against Whitman in a lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the ombudsman's duties and investigative files from being transferred to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an agency Martin has clashed with in the past and is currently investigating. Through a spokesperson, Whitman denied Martin's charges.

more

I was somewhat hopeful after listening to her on the Colbert Report last night that there may be a beginning movement from the party back to the center.....this just smacks of typical Republican tactics. But hey, she just wrote a book....

and I thought she was reasonable on certain issues. But now this has really put the nail in the coffin for me.

Question to lurking conservatives: are you Republican or are you American?