In Tampa, Democrats call for an investigation into the firing of Gerald Bailey

Days after the members of the Florida Cabinet — Attorney General Pam Bondi, CFO Jeff Atwater, and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam — voted to appoint longtime Florida Department of Law Enforcement veteran Richard Swearingen to replace Gerald Bailey as commissioner, questions remain about why Gov. Rick Scott forced Bailey to resign last month.

The controversy has been stoked by the fact that Scott told reporters on Tuesday that Bailey resigned. But Bailey quickly retorted that was a lie, and that if the governor actually said that, “he’s being totally untruthful.”

In Tampa on Friday, Democrats said there should be an independent investigation.

“There’s another agency that can do an investigation on corruption,” U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said, regarding the fact that the FDLE would hardly be a neutral arbiter in investigating its former leader. “And that’s the U.S. Department of Justice. And I suspect that they are looking at some things,” he told a group of reporters in his Tampa district office. “I think it’s gotten the attention of the legal authorities in Washington.” But he admitted that he had no inside knowledge of the case, and his only evidence backing up his claim  about the DOJ was the fact that Attorney General Eric Holder has already warned state officials that the Justice Department would be “carefully monitoring” voter access in the state months before last November’s election.

Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner from Tampa said the firing of Gerald Bailey should be looked into, “because it smacks of political intrusion on someone’s part.” Like Nelson, Joyner said she was devoid of any knowledge of what may have transpired, but called Bailey an “honorable” man whom she has worked with throughout her entire 14-year career in the Florida House and Senate. “I take him at his word,” she said regarding Bailey’s side of the story.

“If I were a member of the Cabinet, I’d be calling for a review of it,” she said, referring to Bondi, Putnam and Atwater. The latter two have expressed disappointment in how Bailey’s departure went down, while Bondi has had radio silence on the issue. “I’d like to see it investigated,” Joyner said.

So would Tampa House Democrat Janet Cruz.

“I think it’s curious,” she said on Friday, as she joined Joyner and a bevy of local Tampa Democrats who gathered in Ybor City for an event honoring former La Gaceta publisher  Roland Manteiga. “I’m curious to what really happened … there’s something going on over there,” musing aloud that “Perhaps there should be an investigation.”

Also present at the gathering in Ybor City was former Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, a former member of the Cabinet herself. She has been explicit in saying that Gov. Scott needed one other member of the Cabinet to vote to terminate Bailey.

But none have said they did vote that way, because they contend that the governor told them that Bailey was resigning of his own volition.