MACKINAC ISLAND (WWJ) – Not part of his original plans, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan opened the Mackinac Policy Conference on Tuesday denying claims of wrongdoing amid reports that he revealed the identity of a confidential FBI informant.
The Detroit News on Tuesday morning reported federal agents have linked the mayor to “a chain of events that outed a confidential FBI informant and alerted a target of an ongoing investigation of bribery, extortion and fraud at City Hall.”
During a briefing on Tuesday afternoon Duggan called suggestions that he knowingly revealed the informant’s identity “just plain nonsense.”
"I did not and would not ever disclose the identity of a person I knew to be a confidential source in an investigation. Any suggestion that I did is just plain false," Duggan said in response to the story.
The story from the News stems from the investigation into towing corruption throughout the city that landed former Detroit City Councilman Andre Spivey a two-year prison sentence.
Spivey, convicted of taking more than $30,000 in bribes, shared the name of a towing contractor with Duggan, telling the mayor he had taken money from him and would not be running for re-election.
Duggan says Spivey never mentioned the contractor was an FBI informant, according to the report.
The mayor says he did disclose the person’s name with the Detroit law department and the police department, which had been working to eliminate no-bid towing contracts in the city.
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Duggan says he advised both departments because they had ongoing investigations with the tower.
“Our management team immediately put together a plan to get rid of the no-bid towing permits for good. So all of us were working on it, but nobody had any reason to think this person was a confidential source,” Duggan said during Tuesday’s briefing on Mackinac Island.
The disclosures have raised concerns about whether the informant's safety was jeopardized and if city officials obstructed an ongoing FBI investigation.
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