Case Hautala

[Askold]

Heidi Hautala is a Finnish politician who has been forced to resign yet again due to scandals she has gotten into.

And no, I'm not talking about sex scandals, (for some reason those usually happen to male politicians) earlier she was in a agency that was fighting grey economy but had to resign when it was revealed that she had herself been employing some renovators who were skimping on taxes and didn't think there was anything wrong with this even though the company had told her about it beforehand. (basically, they had cheaper prices for customers who did not require receipts for work done.) and that came out when she told about it in an interview. (and was suprised when people were outraged about that.)

http://yle.fi/uutiset/hautala_resigns_from_grey-economy_working_group/6540844

But this time she was caught in a scandal involving Greenpeace. Back when Greenpeace staged an illegal prosest on an icebreaker which belonged to a company owned by the Finnish goverment she used her power as a minister to force the company to drop the criminal charges against Greenpeace. Since Hautala herself is from the Green party it is not that suprising that she would see Greenpeace favourably.

http://www.canada.com/news/world/Finnish+minister+resigns+after+criminal+charges+dropped+against/9026000/story.html

In the latter case, originally one of her aides took the blame and claimed he had been acting alone when pressuring the company. Hautala herself tried to make him the fall guy but when the truth came out that she had in fact been on the case and given the order to force the company to drop the charges these lies just made her case even worse.

Now, even if the original case woul fall on the grey area (GP didn't really do much damage and was a minor inconvinience) and pushing your own agenda is a big part of being a politician but making some aide your fall guy is just cowardly and lying about your actions and motivations are enough of a reason for resignation/firing.

[Old Viking]

I'm sorry, but I cannot believe this of a politician.

[Dakota Bob]

When you employ renovators you tell you right out that they skimp on taxes, that should be the point when you go "You know what, maybe this isn't a good idea"

[Askold]

I'm sorry, but I cannot believe this of a politician.

I know!  Dishonest politician? This is an outrage!

It's just so refreshingly cool to see a politician get caught from their asshattery and scheming and facing actual repercussions of it.

Also, turns out that the Greenpeace case was less of a "grey area" and more like against the law. She had in fact threatened the company leadership and said they will be fired unless they drop the charges. And even though the Green party said they had released all the communications between them and the company they forgot that "do what we say or you are fired" bit.

[SCarpelan]

Is there actual evidence that she was the source of the firing threat? I'm not defending her corruption, I'm just genuinely interested. The news I've read said that the direct threat was sent by the official who is responsible for the government's corporate ownership and the Greens claim that Hautala's instructions were to threaten with a board meeting to cancel the decision to raise charges. This is still unacceptable and enough for her to be forced to resign. It's possible that the official who sent the text message was misinterpreting her instructions and I'm just barely willing to give her the benefit of a doubt unless there is other evidence showing that she meant the threat as it was delivered. Even if the Greens' version is the truth it doesn't absolve her from the responsibility but it is less dictatorial.

[Askold]

The "evidence" was that in one of the text messages from the aide he claimed he was forewarding the order from Hautala.

I admit that this could be a lie, Soininvaara, another politician from the Green party, did point that out as a possibility in a talk show but immediately shut up about. Which does highlight a problem the Greens have now: their every attempt to save face makes them seem more dishonest. I mean they did reveal the messages that incriminated them to bullying the company, but they did not reveal the worst message which had the threat of firing the CEO. They claim that this was an mistake and that their initial draft had that message had that one as well, but to the public it just seems like more lies.

I am likely to believe them since this does seem like a case where accidents and incompetence could achieve the same as evil (and incompetence.)

And now if it did turn out that the aide was lying, how are they going to prove it without making it look like they are using him as a scapegoat?

(Personally, after reading more about it the original offense wasn't that serious but all this backpedaling and coverups kept making it worse.)

[Witchyjoshy]

I think at this point, it's basically irrelevant whether this is a case of it being mistaken or a case of it being intentional malevolence.  She's proven, either way, she's not fit for the position she's in, if I'm not mistaken.