Fair warning to anyone whose confidential information may be on file with the state of Maine: Stay on the good side of Gov. Paul LePage.

Last week, amid one of his chronic tirades against Maine’s immigrants and refugees, LePage did an interview with the Boston Herald – his apparent go-to newspaper when he wants to spout off without any of those troublesome follow-up questions.

The source of his ire: Adnan Fazeli, the Iranian refugee who became radicalized after moving to Maine in 2009, left his home in Freeport to go off and fight with the Islamic State in Syria in 2013, and died in battle with the Lebanese army in early 2015.

(All of which LePage learned about from a story on the front page of Tuesday’s Portland Press Herald. A newspaper he insists he never reads.)

That LePage would be upset at the news of a jihadist springing from our midst came as no surprise. Many shared his sentiment.

But here’s where it got ominous: The Herald, citing only “Maine officials,” reported that Fazeli “was on food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for at least four years until 2013.”

“LePage said he is now calling for a review of all such benefits in his state,” the Herald continued. “He also said Fazeli’s wife is no longer in Maine.”

Let’s turn now to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 7, Part 272.1, which clearly states that those with legal access to information on food stamp recipients “must adequately protect the information against unauthorized disclosure to persons or for purposes not specified in this section.”

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I’d be willing to bet that a politically charged leak to the Boston Herald falls way outside the tightly limited disclosures (to state bureaucrats, law enforcement and immigration officials) permitted under the federal code.

And while LePage denied through his spokesman on Friday that he whispered said leak into the Herald’s ear, the governor expressed no dismay whatsoever that “Maine officials,” on his watch, clearly broke the law by posthumously outing Fazeli.

(Of course, LePage had no problem telling the world that Fazeli’s widow and three children – who, wink-wink, must have been on welfare too – no longer reside in Maine.)

Before LePage lets himself off the hook so easily, however, it’s worth noting that he became at least a de facto party to this federal violation the moment he invoked Fazeli as his newfound reason for instructing the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to “look at our welfare rolls closer.”

“This is very embarrassing to the state of Maine, and I point the finger at (President Obama) and say, ‘How did this happen?’ ” LePage told the Herald. “If the federal government doesn’t do their job, we don’t know what we’re getting.”

(Not to nitpick, but he had the wrong president. When Fazeli arrived in the United States in 2008, George W. Bush occupied the White House.)

The point here is not to defend Fazeli, who pretty much got what he deserved after he decided to take up arms with a band of lunatics bent on destroying civilization as we know it.

Rather, by ignoring the fact that legal confidentiality was violated in this case and then using it to further his own anti-immigrant agenda, LePage has sent a chilling message to anyone who might rub him the wrong way personally, politically or philosophically: State government has private information on you. And you never know when, or how, it just might become public.

Ditto for Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew, who picked up where LePage left off on Wednesday when she told WCSH that her department is already hard at work rooting out welfare fraud in Maine’s immigrant community.

“There are certainly a number of cases, investigations underway right now, that involve welfare fraud and abuse, that pertain to immigrants, that we are going to continue to devote the necessary resources to guard against the misuse of taxpayer dollars, that in several cases include concerns around criminal activity and terrorism,” Mayhew told the TV station.

Now suppose for a moment that I was to write a column about, say, my “concerns” that senior members of the LePage administration routinely get plastered after work and then drive home drunk.

The appropriate response? How dare I say that! If I’m going to make such a serious allegation, I’d darn well better back it up with some specifics!

Which is why neither I, nor any of my colleagues here at the Maine Sunday Telegram, would ever do such a thing.

Not so for Mayhew. She drops the word “terrorism” like a ticking time bomb at the end of her rambling quote, knowing full well that’s the one word many in her audience will remember – along with, of course, the aforementioned “welfare fraud” and “immigrants.”

Evidence? It’s, ahem, confidential. (At least until it isn’t.)

Accountability? Hey, it’s television. People will remember what was said long after they’ve forgotten who said it.

Compassion for the least fortunate among us? Sure, as long as they don’t have hard-to-pronounce surnames.

Click on the reader comments beneath the online version of this column and I guarantee you’ll find a pack of LePage apologists whining that I can’t seem to sit down at the keyboard lately without zeroing in on the governor or those aligned with him.

You’re damn right I can’t.

Maine is stuck with Paul LePage for another two-plus years. Mary Mayhew has made no secret of her interest in taking his place.

Both have a sworn duty to uphold the law as they go about their official business. Instead, they raise nary an eyebrow while the law gets sucker-punched in the name of political opportunism.

Both have a moral obligation to treat all Maine residents equally, regardless of skin color, ethnic origin or time spent living here.

Instead, to an incessant far-right drumbeat, they single out immigrants and refugees with not-so-subtle undertones of suspicion and contempt.

Both, by virtue of their lofty titles, would have us regard them as leaders.

They’re nothing of the sort.

And as they now turn their blind eyes and deaf ears to the notion of personal privacy, their shame has reached new depths.

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