As state attorney general, Rob McKenna has cultivated an image as a careful, squeaky-clean good-government type. But you wouldn't know it from rummaging through three large boxes sitting in the King County Archives and available for public inspection. Marked "Documents: Rob McKenna," these boxes are packed full of papers from McKenna's days on the King County Council (where he served from 1996 through 2004), and many of those papers involve not county business but election campaign business.

That type of activity—the relevant state law describes it as "assisting a campaign for election of any person"—is flatly prohibited inside Washington State government offices.

In response, two complaints were filed with the King County Ombudsman's office, including one from a woman who said McKenna's archived files show he had a "complete disregard" for rules prohibiting campaign activities inside government offices.

The ombudsman's office won't be figuring out whether it agrees or disagrees with this complaint, however.

The problem, according to Ombudsman-Director Amy Calderwood: "The complaints and the supporting documents concern meetings apparently held 9 and a half to 10 years ago."

She continues, in a letter to McKenna that was just shared with me:

File closed.