Apr 2, 2009 6:48 pm US/Central
I-TEAM: Republicans Question AG 'Security' Doors
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
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The Attorney General's Office spent $7500 each on two doors for Lori Swanson's private Capitol office, after a security risk assessment said she is vulnerable.
CBS
Republicans at the Minnesota State Capitol are raising questions about renovations at the attorney general's office that WCCO
highlighted in an I-TEAM report this week.
Among the work done in Attorney General Lori Swanson's office was the installation of some expensive doors.
Swanson spent $7500 each on two doors for her private Capitol office, after a security risk assessment said she is vulnerable.
Now Republican Senate leaders want to know just how serious a risk it really is.
"If there is some security issues I think that we should know them and we should know what the scope of those things are, and what things are going to be done about it. If there isn't a security issue then I think it raises a whole bunch of other questions about what happened and why," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie.
Swanson's security review was done in 2007 by Dennis Flaherty, the current director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, and he said he did the assessment for free.
The review concluded Swanson is "vulnerable", in part, because she's Minnesota's first female attorney general, and that the attorney general's office itself lacks necessary security.
However, the $15,000 doors Swanson ordered for her office weren't made for security. Documents obtained by the I-TEAM show the office doors Swanson purchased are for sound-proofing, not safety.
Republicans said that raises questions because the doors were installed after a bitter union dispute inside the office.
"With this happening now, you just kind of wonder are there any things that are related to what was going on last year? I don't know," said Hann.
The attorney general denied WCCO's request for an interview. A spokesman for the office would say only that "she had a personal security assessment undertaken. It recommended she replace existing glass doors with security doors. She accepted that recommendation."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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