Dem governor’s decades-old political persecution claim over alleged cocaine use disputed by bombshell memo
FIRST ON FOX: Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has for years dismissed an investigation into her alleged cocaine use as politically motivated, but a newly unearthed memo obtained by Fox News Digital contradicts her decades-old claim.
In early 1990, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) in Maine, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Maine’s Bureau of Intergovernmental Drug Enforcement (BIDE) investigated Mills, then a sitting district attorney in Maine, after a drug suspect accused her of using cocaine.
The investigation was eventually dropped without charges being filed, but Mills has maintained that the investigation never had any merit and that she was politically targeted for her Democratic affiliation and criticism of BIDE. In 1990, she and two other district attorneys in Maine criticized BIDE for inflating arrest numbers through excessive enforcement of low-level drug offenders.
“It’s scary,” Mills told the Portland Press Herald in November 1991. “Maine apparently has a secret police force at work that can ruin the reputation of any who opposes it.”
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A March 1995 memorandum from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (DOJ/OPR), addressed to the Deputy Attorney General, of whom Merrick Garland was an associate serving as the principal associate Deputy Attorney General, unearthed by Fox News Digital, refutes Mills’ claim, revealing there was no misconduct by federal or state authorities investigating her case.
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According to the DOJ memo, WCSH-TV reported in December 1990 that Mills was being investigated by a federal grand jury for drug use, citing law enforcement sources. Mills later sued that reporter for libel and slander. The report also prompted Mills’ attorney to demand a grand jury investigation, arguing that “the press received leaks from BIDE law enforcement officials.”
The results of the libel and slander suit are no longer available. The docket for the case showed that the records were disposed of in 2015 in accordance with policy. However, a 1991 Lewiston Sun-Journal article appears to state that the effort to “end drug probe rumors” was thrown out by a judge.
In January 1992, then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., stepped in and requested the DOJ/OPR investigate allegations that Maine’s USAO had “refused to investigate the grand jury leak” and that attorneys had engaged in “intimidation and coercion of witnesses” during the investigation.
Those concerns were initially raised by Patrick Paradis and N. Paul Gauvreau, the House and Senate chairs of the Judiciary Committee of the Maine Legislature, in a letter sent to then-Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine. The letter suggested that the allegations involving Maine’s USAO “go far beyond the state agency involved.”
Ultimately, no charges were filed against Mills for her alleged cocaine use.
But the Department of Justice also found that all of Mills’ claims were “unsubstantiated,” including allegations that she was politically targeted, that investigators solicited false testimony, that witnesses were coerced or threatened and that BIDE agents leaked grand jury information to the press.
“The USAO in Maine conducted a proper investigation of serious allegations; no misconduct of any kind can fairly be attributed to any member of that office,” DOJ/OPR concluded in 1995.
While the Justice Department debunked Mills’ claims, she dismissed the allegations against her as politically motivated throughout the investigation.
According to the memo, Mills “announced publicly that she was the victim of a smear campaign” in 1991.
“I’d say it’s awfully coincidental that this investigation started and was leaked to the press shortly after my public comments about the lack of accountability at BIDE,” Mills said that same year.
Mills also claimed it sets a “very bad precedent when a prosecutor has to look over his or her shoulder every time you put somebody in jail and wonder whether that person is going to find an audience down the street in the BIDE office or down the road in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to say dirty things about you.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Mills’s office multiple times for comment but did not receive a response.
Earlier this year, Mills accused President Donald Trump of leading a “politically directed investigation” into Maine’s Department of Education.
During a National Governors Association (NGA) meeting at the White House in February, Mills and Trump publicly sparred over biological men playing in women’s sports.
Trump said Mills should comply with his executive order preventing transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, or “you’re not going to get any federal funding,” to which she replied, “We’ll see you in court,” which is exactly where the issue has been tied up.
Longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is up for re-election in 2026, and with Mills’ governorship term limited next year, she would be a competitive Democratic candidate to challenge Collins.
Mills indicated in April that she did not “plan to run for another office,” but admitted that “things change week to week, month to month,” leaving the door open to a potential Senate bid.
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