A cover-up in Plumbergate?

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Looks like Ohio has a first-class political scandal brewing over Joe the Plumber. After Helen Jones-Kelley tried to bluff her way out of her actions to check Joe Wurzelbacher’s records when he became a national story, the employee who conducted the search says that she’s never heard of a “famous person” investigation. Vanessa Niekamp also says her supervisors lied to her about the investigation, and then asked her to lie about it afterwards:

Vanessa Niekamp said that when she was asked to run a child-support check on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher on Oct. 16, she thought it routine. A supervisor told her the man had contacted the state agency about his case.

Niekamp didn’t know she just had checked on “Joe the Plumber,” who was elevated the night before to presidential politics prominence as Republican John McCain’s example in a debate of an average American. …

Director Helen Jones-Kelley said her agency checks people who are “thrust into the public spotlight,” amid suggestions they may have come into money, to see if they owe support or are receiving undeserved public assistance.

Niekamp told The Dispatch she is unfamiliar with the practice of checking on the newly famous. “I’ve never done that before, I don’t know of anybody in my office who does that and I don’t remember anyone ever doing that,” she said today.