Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – whose stay-at-home orders are some of the strictest in the nation – is being criticized after her husband tried to skip ahead of other boaters to get his family's vessel in the water before Memorial Day.
Whitmer is also catching heat for attempting to "dupe" Michigan lawmaker Tom Barrett into a "cover-up" after the governor’s office "adamantly denied" Whitmer's husband, Dr. Marc Mallory, had tried to use her position to convince a marina company to quickly service the family's boat to get it out amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Barrett first made the issue public in a Facebook post.
The owner of the marina company NorthShore Dock LLC, Tad Dowker, also publicly posted about the incident.
"This morning, I was out working when the office called me, there was a gentleman on hold who wanted his boat in the water before the weekend," Dowker wrote last Thursday on Facebook in a post that has since become private.
"Being Memorial weekend and the fact that we started working three weeks late means there is no chance this is going to happen," Dowker wrote.
"Well, our office personnel had explained this to the man and he replied, 'I am the husband to the governor, will this make a difference?'"
Whitmer on Tuesday said her husband's request was a "failed attempt at humor."
"My husband made a failed attempt at humor last week when checking in with a small business that helps with our boat and dock up north," Whitmer said at a press conference Tuesday. "Knowing it wouldn't make a difference, he jokingly asked if being married to me might move him up in the queue. Obviously, with the motorized boating prohibition in our early days of COVID-19, he thought it might get a laugh. It didn't."