by
Gov. Rick Sndyer
Criminal investigators working for Attorney General Bill Schuette are still looking at Gov. Rick Snyder, trying to determine if he has done anything to violate the law in the Flint water and Legionnaire's Disease crisis, sources familiar with the probe tell Deadline Detroit.
All along, Snyder has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with anything.
"It's pretty clear Schuette is after Snyder and prosecutors are trying to work their way up" the ladder, one source says. "There's no question they're trying to flip people."
To date, 15 people have been charged criminally in connection with Schuette’s investigation since April 2016, including the state’s top medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, who remains on the job.
Wells faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office, obstruction of justice and lying to a peace officer. Several other current and former state officials also face manslaughter charges.
In criminal probes it's common for investigators and prosecutors to "work their way up the ladder" and "flip" defendants and get them to disclose incriminating information about someone higher up the food chain in exchange for leniency.
Sources speculated that it might be beneficial for Snyder to keep some defendants on the job, rather than suspend or fire them, so that they feel less inclined to provide any incriminating evidence to investigators about others.
Snyder came under fire this past week and said he stands by his testimony that he didn't learn about outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in the Flint area until January 2016.
Snyder's sworn testimony before a congressional committee was contradicted last week when a top aide, Harvey Hollins III, testified at a Flint court hearing that he told Snyder about the outbreaks weeks earlier, in December 2015, the Detroit Free Press reports.
