“It’s the political season,” Gov. Matt Bevin’s chief of staff, Blake Brickman, said of House Speaker Greg Stumbo’s investigation into his boss. “Desperate people do desperate things. Very desperate people do desperate things. Very, very, very desperate people pull stunts like Speaker Stumbo just did.”

Brickman couldn’t be more on target in his assessment of the Democrat from Prestonburg. 

Stumbo has appointed a special committee to investigate whether Bevin’s administration stopped a road project in Jessamine County this year in retaliation against state Rep. Russ Meyer, D-Nicholasville. Stumbo says that the state had to pay the road contractor on that project $625,000 in damages last spring because the contractor could not begin work on the project by a deadline set in the contract. 

Meyer has alleged that Bevin left a message threatening him and his district after he refused to change parties. 

But Brickman has said for months that the project was rushed through by former Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration last November before the state had acquired all the land to build it. 

This is a political witch hunt by Stumbo who has a history of targeting Republican governors for personal gain. You will recall during the Ernie Fletcher administration then-Attorney General Stumbo led a crusade to impeach Fletcher. Fletcher ended up walking, and in the end Stumbo simply wasted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

There is a real pattern here with this man.

Stumbo’s own words to state Rep. David Floyd, R-Bardstown, whom he was seeking to serve on the committee, are telling. Stumbo is heard in the voicemail to Floyd saying, “I’m sure the story’s probably not as bad as it was portrayed.”

Through these words, Stumbo is essentially admitting that there probably isn’t anything there, hence he is doing this for political cover and political gain. 

And this man believes he is a leader. 

It’s worth noting that Floyd has said repeatedly he will not serve on this committee.

Stumbo is a man who sees his power slipping away. He knows there is a very good chance he will lose the House to a Republican tidal wave in November and feels this distraction will be enough to cling to power.

We believe he is sorely mistaken.

We wonder where the outrage was from Stumbo over the Tim Longmeyer bribery scandal. Longmeyer, the former state personnel secretary under the former governor and former deputy attorney general under Attorney General Andy Beshear, was convicted of arranging government contracts to go to a Lexington company and then received more than $200,000 in kickbacks. Longmeyer is serving a 70-month prison sentence.

Apparently it’s OK to turn a blind eye to a member of your own party who is a convicted felon.

Stumbo’s committee is a prime example of a mock court. Hundreds of thousands of dollars will be wasted on this meaningless committee that will produce nothing.

It really is sad when our state is facing tremendous problems and the leader of the House of Representatives is devoting valuable time and resources away from addressing those issues.

Again, these are tactless acts by a very, very, very desperate man, nothing more.

– Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated since its initial publication to correct the name of Gov. Matt Bevin’s chief of staff.