Adam Fetcher made nearly $200,000 a year as chief communications officer for the City of Minneapolis. He was formally charged Wednesday with one felony count of financial transaction fraud — for allegedly rifling through three coworkers' desks and bags, taking their debit cards and cash, and spending it at local smoke shops on kratom.
That's the guy they hired to manage the city's public image.
The timing sharpens what's already an ugly story. Fetcher allegedly committed the thefts shortly after returning from substance abuse rehabilitation — where he had disclosed to the city that he was seeking treatment. His purchase of choice, kratom, is a mood-altering botanical primarily used to manage opioid withdrawal symptoms, one that is increasingly under federal and state regulatory scrutiny of its own.
Minneapolis fired him in early July after a police investigation. His attorney declined to comment.
He's due in court on August 11. He has no prior criminal record beyond traffic violations.
The résumé makes the charges more remarkable, not less. Fetcher served as deputy national press secretary on Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, held the press secretary title at the Department of the Interior, and worked as assistant press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. After government, he moved through communications roles at Patagonia and Lyft before landing in Minneapolis. At every stop, his job was to make powerful institutions look credible and trustworthy.
He is now the story the next communications officer has to explain.
The charges land on a city that has plenty of explaining to do already. Mayor Jacob Frey's administration is facing separate scrutiny over widespread fraud involving Somali community members — a politically significant constituency his office has spent years cultivating. Minneapolis keeps producing the kind of headlines that require skilled crisis communications. The person the city hired to manage those communications allegedly couldn't keep his hands off his coworkers' wallets.
There's a pattern in the broader résumé. The Obama orbit — the people who built their brand around being the most principled, most ethical crowd to ever occupy Washington — has a habit of producing alumni who end up on the wrong side of a courtroom. The endings tend to be petty and embarrassing. The kind where a man making $200,000 a year allegedly rifles through his coworkers' bags for smoke shop money after coming back from rehab.
When your job title is chief communications officer and your next public appearance is a court date, the message writes itself.
