When Katie McGinty was Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Environmental Protection, she used the state letterhead to write a recommendation letter for her nephew in his application to Penn State, which is controlled and funded in part by the state government.
McGinty, currently running in a competitive Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, served in the cabinet of Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell from 2003 to 2008, heading the Department of Environmental Protection. In 2004, McGinty wrote to Penn State University a letter fo recommendation for her nephew, according to a copy of the letter I obtained.
The letter is on Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection letterhead, and beneath her signature, it reads “Secretary.” McGinty invokes her state cabinet position in the letter, beginning one sentence: “As a leader of some 3,000 employees here at the Department of Environmental Protection. …”
Penn State is a state-related school. About 10 percent of Penn State’s funding comes from the state government, and the governor sits on the board, along with three cabinet officials (not the environmental protection secretary) and six appointees of the governor.
To sum up: McGinty was a confidant, appointee, and top adviser of the governor when she petitioned a state-funded, governor-influenced institution to accept her nephew. Her campaign had not returned a request for comment by press time.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
