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Charlie LeDuff with his check
Investigative reporter and media personality Charlie LeDuff hasn’t given up on getting the whole story on nursing home deaths in Michigan during the pandemic and what actions Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took.
On Wednesday, LeDuff posted an entertaining video on The Enjoyer website, showing him delivering a check last week to Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office in Lansing for $3,147.90. The payment was for a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to information about nursing home deaths during the pandemic. LeDuff even threw in an extra 10 cents so someone at the AG's office can “call someone who cares.”
“Under the Freedom of Information Act, I asked for all documents given to the federal government in 2020 when the Department of Justice was looking into the civil rights of those old people in the nursing homes,” LeDuff says in the video. “I want to know what Whitmer told them.”
“So, Attorney General Dana Nessel pulled the oldest trick in the journalism book: ‘You can have that information—for $3,147.80,’” LeDuff says. “That’s supposed to make me go away. But I ain’t going away. I’m here to call the bluff.”
Government agencies sometimes charge the media for the cost of researching, assembling and making copies of information for FOIA requests.
LeDuff ends up handing the check to someone at the front counter of Nessel’s office.
Then, in his trademark smart-aleck style, LeDuff suggests the documents should be ready in 90 days—“probably on a Tuesday.”
The “Tuesday” comment was likely a reference to a remark that got him booted as a weekly columnist from The Detroit News in October 2023.
LeDuff had written a critical piece about a conflict of interest involving Nessel, who pushed back against it. The News backed LeDuff, saying the article was fair.
LeDuff then tweeted to Nessel, “See you next Tuesday,” a backronym for the word “cunt.” It’s often written as “C U Next Tuesday.”
After being fired, LeDuff apologized to Editor and Publisher Gary Miles and Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley “for causing them embarrassment and stress.”
But he also said publicly: “I’ll just say this—if I wanted to use the word, I’ll use it, and I reserve the right to use it.”
