The last we heard the Illinois Leader was still planning to sue for John Kerry’s sealed divorced records even though, the records aren’t sealed.
The Leader has a history of attracting the overly litigious with John Zahm’s rather frequent threats to sue several people on the message boards and, of course, Chris Lauzen has been a contributor, a guy who sued over an argument in the party primary over whether he was indeed a CPA. He then tried to legally change his name to Chris Lauzen, CPA and forever becoming a punchline in state politics.
But Proft is claiming that the impoundment of financial information is the same as unsealing the Ryan custody documents. This might be true, except for the actual details get in the way. The custody battle in the Ryan case was contested. In the Kerry-Thorne divorce the divorce was no-fault and the agreement for custody and child support was seemingly worked out and then kept as a contract. Massachusetts law stipulates this as possible (site chosen because MA Government site was unwieldy):
If the finding is in the affirmative, the court shall approve the agreement and enter a judgment of divorce nisi. The agreement either shall be incorporated and merged into said judgment or by agreement of the parties, it shall be incorporated and not merged, but shall survive and remain as an independent contract.
Thorne then went to court a few years later to increase support payments from Kerry once his financial situation improved. Somehow this is supposed to be juicy.
To make it even better, the Leader published Kevin McCullough’s column this week claiming “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire.”
The evidence?
The files are sealed.
Of course, the files aren’t sealed.
Then McCullough goes on to say quote a Washington Times piece that actually appears to be quoting Thorne’s book on divorce and depression.
If McCullough searched a bit harder he might have noticed this and other quotes from Thorne:
From the Boston Globe series profiling Kerry:
But the marriage was beyond repair. “Politics became my husband’s life,” Julia wrote in “A Change of Heart,” her 1996 book about divorce. “I tried to be happy for him, but after 14 years as a political wife I associated politics with anger, fear, and loneliness.”
In an interview, she declined to elaborate on this period, except to say: “The dissolution of the marriage was my doing, not John’s. I wanted something else.”
That gives it a bit different context doesn’t it?
McCullough is not to be deterred though:
What kind of man leaves his wife, but especially when she is in the midst of suicidal depression?
See above again. No one’s marriage, let alone their divorce is easy and certainly he was partially at fault, but to assume that he left her is a paternalistic bit of bullshit.
In addition, there seemed to be a hotly contested issue when Kerry later wished to marry Teresa Heinz over whether or not he should be granted an annulment.
And this part is true. Kerry sought an annullment in the Catholic Church. Given I’m not Catholic, I find the whole dance around divorce strange and this even weirder, but then again, I’m not Catholic.
He pushed ahead for the annulment even though it technically threw his daughters into the bizarre state of illegitimacy. Having recovered from her depression by that point, some 18 years later Thorne fired back with hotly worded letters that she also copied to the Boston Globe.
The timeline is bizarrely off unless he is talking about the beginning of the marriage.
Ultimately, we know this–Kerry’s files are open to the same extent and probably more than Jack!’s. It’s just that Kerry didn’t have a messy divorce, Jack! did. I’ve long held that if Jack! had just released the files it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Jack! decided to lie repeatedly about the files. Of course, he isn’t the first politician. Ask Bruce Benson in Colorado or Chuck Douglass and others in New Hampshire.
The law assumes that records are public unless there is good reason to seal them. If Jack! had a lawyer that didn’t tell him the records would probably be released, Jack! had a really crappy lawyer. A simple treatment of the issue is available here.
On Jack!’s rehabilitation tour he has been claiming that this is a first in American history. While finding a particular case involving custody documents might be difficult, the judge’s ruling is with precedent and examples can be found in the news where documents were unsealed over both former spouse’s wishes. The question isn’t why was the ruling surprising, but why it wasn’t expected.
If people want to clamor for public disclosure, may I suggest Teresa Heinz Kerry’s tax records are the place to start–that is a real issue and something particularly important.
As US Senator, Kerry has had to file personal financial disclosures. The financial information in his divorce files is sealed, but the basic information is available (not the details; the disclosure forms have some exemptions, and value of assets is only disclosed by category, eg 50-100,000).
It looks like the Leader wants to use this lawsuit to bash the Tribune. But how do you bash the Tribune for not filing a lawsuit to unseal the files when the same information is already publicly available (and, I am certain, scrutinized by the GOP)?
Bingo! It’s rather strange–that and the Heinz financials are a big deal in terms of precedent.
Some clarification for non-Catholics about annulments: as the recent debate over gay marriage has most of us aware, American marriages usually have two components, a civil one and a religious one. For marriages that have been made within the Catholic Church, a divorce decree, being a civil document, brings the marriage to a close in the eyes of the state but not in the eyes of the Church, hence the need for an annulment if you want to remarry in the Church. Althouth an annulment is in fact a declaration by the Church that the marriage in question never actually existed (because a “true” marriage would never have broken down in the first place), having a marriage annulled does not cause children born within that marriage to become illegitimate–the idea of illegitimacy is a civil idea, not a religous one. Most observent Catholics (and Kerry, despite what conservative Catholics want you to believe, is an observent Catholic) who want to remarry try to get an an annulment so that they can remarry in the Church, but they often initiate the annulment process only once one party in the marriage has decided to remarry, rather than simultaneous with the divorce. Hence, the annulment process can begin long after the divorce has been finalized (which may be what happened in Kerry’s case), and often dredges up long-repressed emotions about the marriage (which also may be what happened in Kerry’s case). Annulments can also be emotionally fraught because they require specific testimony as to why the marriage should be nullified, and because the annulment can, if necessary, be pursued by only one party in the marriage, without the other party’s consent. Thus, it isn’t unusual for annulments to be hotly contested by one party in the marriage, but it is my impression that most people who pursue an annulment usually get one in the end, as it is in the Church’s best interests to keep as many marriages within the Church as possible. Of course, as ArchPundit has stated before, annulment documents are not public documents and the contents of the Kerrys’ annulment testimony are none of our business, although I imagine that must be terribly disappointing to those yahoos at the Illinois Leader.