Lawyer requests public records from Cuccinelli regarding campaign activities

A Northern Virginia lawyer and Democratic Party activist is pressuring Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to be transparent about how he is balancing his official duties with his candidacy for governor.

“Records about your schedule will reassure the public that you are not performing campaign functions during your work hours.  Information about your reimbursements will assure us that travel arranged through the Attorney General’s office is official and not campaign-related,” wrote Michael Signer in a letter to Cuccinelli released to the public on Thursday in which the attorney made a formal request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act for records related to Cuccinelli’s schedule, travel expenses and communications with the Republican Party of Virginia, the Republican Governors Association and the Cuccinelli gubernatorial campaign.

The Cuccinelli campaign has had no comment pending a review of the request from Signer, a former top advisor to then-Gov. Mark Warner who launched an ultimately unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Party lieutenant-governor nomination in 2009.

Democrats have been pressing Cuccinelli to step down from his attorney-general post following a tradition dating back more than three decades. Gov. Bob McDonnell himself stepped down from his attorney-general position in 2005, saying that he didn’t feel he could balance his public duties with his campaign responsibilities.

“Virginians elect their Attorneys General to serve the public, not to run for Governor. In fact, you stated last month: ‘I ran to be Attorney General, not to run for Governor.’ Yet, in recent months, you have been directing the Office of Attorney General while running for Governor,” Signer wrote to Cuccinelli in the Thursday letter.

“This has naturally created a question in the public mind about whether the resources of the Office of the Attorney General are being invested in the public interest or in a political campaign.  This concern can be readily dispelled with open information about your office.

“Specifically, records about your schedule will reassure the public that you are not performing campaign functions during your work hours.  Information about your reimbursements will assure us that travel arranged through the Attorney General’s office is official and not campaign-related.  Finally, your office’s emails to political organizations will demonstrate that no campaign work has been performed using the Office of the Attorney General’s resources.”