JEFFERSON CITY - In a stunning public admission that should disqualify him from further involvement in the Taum Sauk dam collapse case, Jay Nixon today publicly cast doubt on his own prosecutorial impartiality for taking more than $19,000 in campaign contributions from the utility while he was investigating it.

The Kansas City Star today recounted Nixon’s acceptance of the contributions from Ameren and then gave Nixon’s office the opportunity to say whether the self-described chief law enforcement officer of the state felt the money had compromised his role as a prosecutor: “Nixon spokesman Scott Holste did not respond directly to the accusation that his boss was compromised as a prosecutor.”

"If Jay Nixon can’t give a straight answer about whether the Ameren contributions compromised his role as a prosecutor, then he obviously has doubts about his own impartiality, confirming what most Missourians have suspected for more than a year,” said Paul Sloca, communications direction for the Missouri Republican Party. “Nixon’s stunning admission completely and utterly disqualifies him from any role pertaining to Ameren both now and in the future.”

Not mentioned in The Star story are recent campaign finance reports showing that $7,000 in Ameren contributions Nixon claims he returned were actually funneled back to Nixon’s campaign by two Democrat committees through Ameren subsidiary Missouri Central Railroad Company.  Nixon’s doubts also can be traced to his very public failure to file criminal charges against Ameren after failing to identify critical evidence in a Missouri State Highway Patrol report which named two employees who removed critical reservoir probes. The Missouri Public Service Commission, which oversees utilities, has launched its own investigation into Ameren’s culpability in the reservoir collapse.

“Jay Nixon is obviously concerned that his credibility as a prosecutor has been compromised and that his shakedown of Ameren for campaign cash will come back to haunt him,” Sloca said.