Smokey and the Branstad -- Lavorato rides to the rescue

Good news today for Gov. Terry Branstad on the "hard 90" front.

His appointed special investigator, former Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Lavorato, has found that the governor's office had no involvement in the firing of a longtime DCI agent who called in the troopers to pursue Branstad's speeding SUV back in April.

From The Gazette's Erin Jordan:

 Jennifer Jacobs at The Des Moines Register takes a similar tack:

No interference. Hands off. No influence. The governor finally gets a whole slug of stories and headlines vindicating his office in the Hedlund affair. Lavorato is well-respected, so his judgment will carry public weight.

And the governor will, no doubt, celebrate by having his trooper do a bunch of squealing doughnuts in the Capitol parking lot. Kidding.

There will be skeptics who argue that Branstad got the outcome he wanted from his hand-picked investigator, paging Jack Hatch, but they'll be bit players in today's story.

Still, this isn't over. Who says? Why, Justice Lavorato, of course.

A key excerpt from Lavorato's report (posted below in full). Sorry so lengthy:

Basically, after interviewing the principles  principals, (sans Hedlund, who declined Lavorato's invite), and reviewing the official paper trail, Lavorato found no direct evidence that Hedlund's firing was in retaliation for the speeding debacle. Which tells us one of two things -- that the firing truly was not in retaliation, or that the principles principals are smart enough not to admit to retaliation or put it in writing. The paper trail for unjustified retaliatory firing tends to be on the thin side. That's why, as Lavorato says, these claims depend largely on circumstantial evidence.

So this saga is still rolling on toward court, where a jury may be asked to decide if the direct outweighs the circumstantial, or the other way around. If it actually makes it to a courtroom, it's going to be a very interesting drama. But unlike the governor's SUV, the legal process will not move at a hard 90. That keeps the story alive.

But after many lousy news days since the speeding saga broke, Branstad finally had a good one.