If Barack and Michelle Obama were actually trying to build up conspiracy theories around the still-murky death of the family’s personal chef in July, they couldn’t be doing a much better job.
As the Boston Herald reported on Tuesday, the office of the Massachusetts Medical Examiner last week officially ruled the death of Tafari Campbell an accidental drowning, but so little information has been released about the circumstances that First Amendment advocates and conservative critics are engaged in an outrcry over what is still being withheld.
And there’s plenty to make the most fair-minded observers suspicious.
Campbell, 45, was found dead July 24, a day after disappearing while paddle boarding in Edgardtown Great Pond near the Obama estate on tony Martha’s Vineyard.
BREAKING: Obama’s personal chef Tafari Campbell’s cause of death has been released after he was found dead outside of Obama’s estate last month.
According to MA Office of Public Safety & Security spokesman Timothy McGuirk, Campbell’s death has officially been ruled a drowning &… pic.twitter.com/kLqvLYhYtF
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 23, 2023
That’s obviously a tragedy for Tafari, who left behind a widow and twin sons. But drowning accidents happen every day, even in enclaves for the rich and famous like Martha’s Vineyard. The race goes not to the swift, after all.
The story could be told in day, causing a ripple in the ebb and flow of the news cycle, but then left largely to the friends and family who survived to carry on the important business of living, while the rest of the country moved on.
Instead, it appears that a veil of secrecy has dropped over the death, shrouding what should be simply mundane details in an aura of mystery.
Should police release more info on the death of the chef?
Yes: 100% (671 Votes)
No: 0% (2 Votes)
Officials have still not publicly identified the woman who was paddle boarding with Tafari. She’s been known to have been a fellow Obama staffer and the Daily Mail reported last week that she was 26, but other than that, she’s a cipher.
His toxicology report — which would give an idea whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the death of a man whose body was found only 100 feet from shore — has not been released, thanks to Massachusetts law.
If Tafari was inebriated or suffered from some sort of medical condition that made it impossible for him to save his own life, the public hasn’t been informed, and that’s a major question.
Even people who can’t swim will struggle mightily to keep themselves alive, and 100 feet, under the calm conditions needed to go paddle boarding in the first place, should have been do-able for a man who knows how.
And that mystery feeds the idea that there’s more to Tafari’s death than a simple accident in a resort area at the height of summer.
This isn’t tinfoil hat stuff either.
First Amendment advocates and media representatives told the Daily Mail that the authorities need to come clear — for instance by releasing the 911 call which the Daily Mail reported was made by a Secret Service agent to report the potential drowning.
“The 911 call absolutely should be released,” Robert Bertsche, general counsel of the New England Newspaper and Press Association, told the Daily Mail in an article published Thursday.
“So should the other details about the now-completed investigation by state or local authorities. That’s not merely the law – it’s a sound public practice …
“By refusing to disclose the investigation details, the police have spawned a cottage industry of rumor-making and malign speculation,” he said.
“It’s natural for members of the public to ask: ‘What do they have to hide?’”
It’s particularly natural under the circumstances, when every American who follows the news knows good and well that a drowning related to another famous politician — oh, say, to pick on out of a hat, Donald Trump — would be front and center news all over the country.
Local, state and federal authorities — not to mention family and friends of the deceased — would be being hounded, staked-out and harassed by the establishment media for any crumb of information, with the air resounding with calls about the public’s sacred “right to know.”
The name of Tefari’s companion, in particular, is of public relevance. She apparently witnessed the incident first-hand and apparently tried to reach Tefari to help. A simple accounting for why she was unable to do so shouldn’t be that hard.
And before we get into pearl-clutching about stoking rumors about the 45-year-old man paddle boarding with a woman half his age, there’s nothing on its face that suggests impropriety on its face.
And even if there were, this is a country that has been through the Bill Clinton presidency, with its infamous blue dress and even more infamous cigar. Followed by the ceaseless degradation of human sexuality that has been relentless throughout the 21st century. It’s a good bet that hanky panky by a chef — even the Obama chef — would barely make a headline, much less a scandal.
So, what is it about this particular woman, at this particular time and place, that apparently has the powers-that-be in Massachusetts willing to stonewall the public to keep her name and role out of it?
Instead of the wall-to-wall coverage every honest American knows would have blanketed a death at Mar-a-Lago, the Tafari death has gotten negligible coverage. CNN gave last week’s “accidental death” announcement a story consisting one new paragraph and the rest of it background.
Summer interns on most news organizations do more work than that.
Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, said Americans deserve to know more — especially about the woman who was with Tafari and what coordination there has been between the Secret Service and local and state investigators.
(This is Massachusetts, remember, a state so liberal a Democratic heavyweight could practically get away with murder if he felt like it. Oh, wait …)
“It’s simple information. What’s the state secret about this other than to protect Obama, to protect him from embarrassment or having to answer questions on this,” Fitton said, according to the Daily Mail.
“This is why people don’t trust what they’re told about cases such as these.
“What otherwise looks to be a simple tragic accident becomes something else because the government withholds information improperly to protect a politician.”
To be fair, the Daily Mail noted that Bertsche said Massachusetts authorities are always too tightlipped when it comes to giving the public information — that it’s not just the Obamas.
He said the group Center for Public Integrity gave Massachusetts an “F” in 2015 when it came to public information and that in 2020, The Boston Globe successfully sued the state for its failure to follow public records law.
But that actually doesn’t excuse anyone in a situation like this — it just makes it worse.
The fact that a crime in South Boston might go unsolved is important to South Boston, and maybe the whole city, but it would be tough to find an American outside of the New England area who would care.
However, Democrats and the establishment media still haven’t shaken their regard for former President Barack Obama as a kind of messianic figure of the New Socialist Age, and his wife, Michelle, is still considered presidential material in some quarters.
Massachusetts owes the country more. The Obamas owe the country more.
And when they don’t pay up, they’re forcing even the most non-conspiracy-minded American to ask: “What do they have to hide?”
