From the Editors: Good government starts with accountability — even for Shapiro
“Good government is good politics,” Governor Josh Shapiro said to the New York Times in a 2018 interview.
He was speaking with reporters there about his decision to unseal a grand jury report detailing years of horrific abuse by Catholic priests. Earlier, speaking at a news conference about the report, Shapiro said that the local dioceses “protected their institution at all costs. As the grand jury found, the church showed a complete disdain for victims.”
The then-Attorney General’s words struck a tone with Pennsylvanians, and bringing justice to those abused victims contributed to Shapiro’s upward trajectory in Pennsylvania politics.
Shapiro’s office was similarly hard-charging in other abuse cases, where influential institutions in the commonwealth covered for the powerful at the expense of their victims.
Again, speaking with the Times, but on the Penn State – Jerry Sandusky scandal, he said “We go after these kinds of cover-ups and abuse wherever we find it.”
Wherever we find it.
Well, almost.
In 2023, Mike Vereb — a member of Governor Josh Shapiro’s cabinet and a longtime ally of the governor — was forced to resign after a sexual harassment scandal. Only while he was in the mix to possibly be the vice-presidential candidate for Kamala Harris did Shapiro say he had no early knowledge of the incidents, and the mainstream press has not questioned him on this.
In the time since Shapiro smoothed things over with female Democrats in Harrisburg, Broad + Liberty has been working to nail down the details of the investigation the administration allegedly conducted into Vereb. Our premise was very simple: when faced with charges of abuse in his own ranks, would he — his words — go after these kinds of cover-ups and abuses? Or would he protect the powerful and the institution they serve at the expense of the victim? When it was his turn to deal with abuse and institutional protection in his own domain, how did this governor respond? To be overly generous, the responses from his office have not built our confidence in the governor’s claims.
The biggest problem in researching this question is that when we requested the emails Vereb’s accuser sent in her final week on the job, we were told that there were none. Further requests through the Office of Open Records and the courts produced an even more shocking truth: her entire account had been deleted. No archive, no nothing. Just gone.
Shapiro’s people tried to say that this was in accordance with document retention schedules, but our examination of those schedules showed this to be untrue. Moreover, records even older than the ones we requested were found to have been archived in accordance with the schedules. So the administration was capable of preserving emails of ex-employees and following the rules about such things — they just chose not to do so in this one case.
Shapiro’s alibi that he didn’t know initially about the allegations does not absolve him of anything. In fact, it only makes matters worse.
The accuser quit her job in March 2023. Based on the information provided by Shapiro’s spokesperson, the governor didn’t know of the accusations until settlement negotiations had begun. Given that the settlement was signed on the last day of August by the accuser, then by the government in the first days of September, it’s more than reasonable to assume he knew by mid-August, at the very latest.
Even if you accept Shapiro’s claim — that he was unaware until negotiations began — that still places his awareness at least as early as mid-August. Yet Vereb remained in office until late September. Why wasn’t he removed immediately?
The idea that Shapiro didn’t know for months — if it is, in fact, true — is itself a stunning failure in executive leadership.
The slogans of fifty years ago are echoed in the question: “what did the governor know and when did he know it?”
Did Josh Shapiro personally order this ex-employee’s documents to be destroyed? Who ordered what and when? It’s impossible to say for sure when the governor keeps stonewalling. We can only speculate what the deleted records might have shown — and that’s the problem. When a public agency destroys records, it prevents accountability by design. That’s why the law treats it as a serious offense. We have no doubt they understand that the destruction of public records is a crime in this state. There is no question records were destroyed. Someone destroyed them. Given the risks, why?
It’s time for the man who once held Pennsylvania’s most powerful investigative post to turn that scrutiny on his own administration.
By and large, Pennsylvania media have failed to ask hard questions about the numerous irregularities. Based on what we saw during the 2024 “veepstakes,” we’re modestly optimistic that the national press will be more willing to ask tough questions, either in a re-election year of 2026, or potentially for a presidential campaign in 2028.
Broad + Liberty has done its best to conduct oversight on the governor’s office and their handling of the Vereb scandal. But we can only do so much. The longer the governor and his staff refuse to answer our questions and prefer to drag it out in litigation costly to the taxpayer, the more apparent it becomes that someone else needs to start asking.
We have a state attorney general and a state senate that have the power and the means to investigate wrongdoing in the executive branch. They ought to exercise their constitutional powers to ensure justice is served. The destruction of records, if left uninvestigated, would set a dangerous precedent for executive impunity in Pennsylvania.
The governor and the governor’s office cannot be allowed to simply destroy documents without consequence. Should that be the case, then Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law is a tiger without teeth — it is no law at all. The issues of transparency at stake here do not apply only to the governor, but to every level of government in the commonwealth. Our request of the governor, by Right to Know Standards, was very basic. We asked for documents that every citizen in this commonwealth is entitled to, by law. If they get away with this, every future administration will also conveniently misplace incriminating documents. And that would only exacerbate the commonwealth’s already toxic political culture.
As the governor used to say, “good government is good politics.”
Josh Shapiro lies as easily as he breathes. His lying is made much easier, when as pointed out in the article, the Pennsylvania press shows zero interest in doing their job because Josh is on the right “team.”
If Josh truly didn’t know and had staff keeping the investigation from him, a principled leader would have fired everyone involved. Of course Josh fired no one.
Josh is another true progressive democrat- the rules and laws are completely dependent in application upon your political registration. Voted for Shapiro? You’re a sucker or a hypocrite.
Donald Trump lies as easily as he breathes. His lying is made much easier, alternative media like Broad & Liberty shows zero interest in doing their job because Trump is on the right “team.”
If Trump truly didn’t know about incidents like the Signal chat and had staff keeping the investigation from him, a principled leader would have fired everyone involved. Of course Trump fired no one.
Trump wasn’t a Malignant Narcissist- the rules and laws are completely dependent in application upon your political registration. Voted for Trump? You’re a sucker or a hypocrite.
Gosh homer, while we’re at it, what do you think of the new NFL kickoff rules?
How about why Chuck Negron has never reunited with Three Dog Night?
Why did General Mills discontinue that wonderful cereal Corn Bran?
Do you think Ford will ever resurrect the Taurus?
See, all my questions here have as much to do with the article on Josh Shapiro as your weekly Trump diatribes.
Defend Josh. That’s what the article is about. But you can’t. He’s a proven liar, hypocrite and misogynist. So you spew about Trump, and Trump and more Trump. When you and all your partisan tiny-bubble proggy friends have no response, you deflect and stick your fingers in your ears and yell “La La La La La, I can’t hear you”. It’s a sign you’ve lost, and you have. Even with the Pennsylvania media doing its damndest to cover for Josh, the Emperor has no clothes. He’s been exposed for what he is- the fake front store on a movie set. On the outside, everything looks just perfect, but as soon as you walk through the door, you find there’s nothing there but 2x4s holding up the fake walls. It’s empty, just like Josh is empty. He lied about supporting school choice. He lied about opposing RGGI. He lied claiming he would run the most transparent administration ever (while having everyone who steps foot on the grounds sign an NDA). And he’s cool with sexual harassment. Disprove any of that, homer, any of it.
You’re a sad little partisan lib. That’s ok, but your first step to getting well is to admit it.
You have a blind spot in your comments. Shapiro did this once, Trump has been lying all of his life and in his 2nd term as President. When it comes to sexual harassment close to 2 dozen women stepped forward who had been assaulted by Trump over several decades, and he lost a civil suit with one of his victims. Alternative media gives him a pass for every campaign promise and people like you fail to acknowledge this.
And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, homer. Since you have no original thoughts of your own (proggys just memorize what Morning Joe tells them to think), you can gladly copy my material. I’m here to help you any way I can. Just try to at least change the order of the sentences and not just the names, because that might be plagiarism (not that I care, but do you really want to grow up and be like Joe Biden)?
Your statement can equally be applied to Trump, if you don’t recognize that, then you are a fool.
What do you expect from someone who breaks his campaign promises as easily as changing the channel on his TV. One I find especially egregious is supporting school choice then after receiving a boatload of campaign contributions from teachers’ unions, opposes school choice. The coincidence here is Josh’s epiphany so close to the campaign contributions. (nothing to see here, move along). Josh fits the profile for unprincipled, lying politicians so it is not unreasonable to assume his career going forward will be filled with the same duplicitous approach to sensitive issues.
Anyone that has paid attention to Shapiro over the years knew he never supported school choice to begin with, because he would never display the courage to buck the teachers unions (hell, he didn’t have the courage to stand up for his own faith until Fetterman cleared a path for him). That was more of the same Shapiro- tell the masses what they want to hear while never having any intention of actually following through on it.
But through the combination of rabid partisan democrats (think Judah and Cicero, just to name a few) who would have voted for him even if he had been espousing infanticide and all those “principled” Republican voters who were so proud of themselves for crossing over and voting for the “moderate, sensible” Democrat, it worked.
PT Barnum was 100% right- there is a sucker born every minute and many of them call Pennsylvania home.
Is that you FedUp? I was worried about you when you got banned. I am glad to see you are back and even more unhinged than ever.
Sorry to disappoint, my lefty TDS infected clamoring liberal pigeon chess master. I’m glad to see that I’m also living rent free in your head, and in good company with our (and your) 45th and 47th President. I see not much has changed with you as your syndrome seeps deeper into your gray matter as Trump’s success increases and the democrats fall deeper into the abyss as more information regarding the charade of Biden’s occupation of the Whitehouse and the outright criminality of the left is being bared for all to see. You calling anyone unhinged is an incredible lack of self-awareness on your part, or maybe a poor attempt at humor. I’m flattered by your worrying so. I hope you didn’t lose sleep over my brief hiatus. Now sit back and gather your debunked leftist talking points and stick your needles into your Trump voodoo doll. Feel better?
Let’s talk about broken campaign promises.
>The $2 trillion DOGE was going to save.
>The DOGE bonus of $5000 to every American
>Ending the war in Ukraine in 24 hours
>No taxes on tips
>No taxes on overtime
>Betraying 10,000 Afghans who fled to this country because they helped America by deporting them back to Afghanistan.
>Eliminating fraud and waste by spending $26 million on 33 golf trips during Trump’s first 100 days in office.
> Allowing Elon Musk to cancel the FAA Verizon contract to be replaced by Starlink, a company owned by Musk.
>Blackmailing law firms to provide $950 million in free legal services to the government.
I like Tuna Melts.
Supertramp was an incredibly overrated band.
I’ve never seen “E.T.” but I hear it’s very good.
Is Monopoly or Life better?
See homer, I can post stuff just as irrelevant to the article at hand as you can. I just have to try a lot harder, cuz irrelevancy comes naturally to you proggys.
Don’t stick your fingers in your ears too deeply, you can sing your “La-la-la-I can’t hear you” loud enough without risking impacted ear wax.
If you are going to claim that Shapiro is a failure over one incident, why does Trump get a pass for multiple failures?
Haha, you know the story is true when all Judah has is “but what about Trump?!”
Dawn Stensland Mendte, 1210 AM radio host, has said on her radio show that she thinks Shapiro is a very fine man… that is sad… but not bizarre.
What might be considered bizarre is when Shapiro’s office ruled Ellen Greenberg’s death a suicide despite her having 20 stab wounds, including 10 to the back and neck—injuries highly inconsistent with suicide. The Philadelphia Medical Examiner, Marlon Osbourne, initially ruled her death a homicide due to the number and nature of the wounds. However, after a meeting with police and prosecutors, the ruling was changed to suicide in March 2011. That is especially questionable. Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia District Attorney, recused himself from the Ellen Greenberg case in 2018 (due to a conflict of interest stemming from his prior professional relationship with Ellen Greenberg’s fiancé, Samuel Goldberg.) What is Shapiro’s relationship to the Goldberg family? Why didn’t Shapiro recuse his office from being involved, too?
And what about that Philadelphia Medical Examiner, Marlon Osbourne, who initially ruled her death a homicide (due to the number and nature of the wounds?) Well… after a meeting with police and prosecutors, the ruling was changed to suicide in March 2011. And then later, in February 2025, Dr. Osbourne reversed his suicide ruling, stating in a court filing that Greenberg’s death “should be designated as something other than suicide.”