It's hard to imagine how tone deaf Attorney General William Tong must be, as he works to hide from the public a whistleblower complaint alleging mismanagement at the Connecticut Port Authority, even as the General Assembly's Transportation Committee plans to convene next week for its latest examination of port authority dysfunction.

Tong, for all we know, could be sitting on Exhibit A.

Tong hiding the whistleblower complaint isn't much different, it seems to me, than when the administration of Gov. Ned Lamont offered hush money to a port authority employee with whistleblower-like fodder, to keep her from going to the press.

The top tier of the state's Democratic establishment seems to be successfully circling the wagons around a scandal-ridden agency run by one of their own.

I would suggest Tong's tight-lipped approach to the whistleblower complaint is especially tone deaf, given the loud complaints by Democrats in Washington when President Trump's attorney general tried to bury the whistleblower complaint, now public, that launched impeachment hearings.

Tong officially declined my Freedom of Information request for the port authority whistleblower complaint last week.

I don't believe he has legal grounds to not release it, based on some consultation I had with the Freedom of Information Commission staff. He is citing a statute that says the name of the whistleblower should be exempt from disclosure, as well "records relative to an investigation of the complaint."

Nothing in the law specifically exempts the complaint itself from FOI laws. Why should it? We will have to let the commission decide, once I file a complaint.

But even if the attorney general is dead right, and he is allowed by law to hide the actual complaint, there is absolutely nothing stopping him from releasing it or describing it.

Like police who don't have to share the details of criminal investigations, they certainly disclose what crimes have been alleged. Tong, in the same way, could tell us what is being alleged at the port authority.

Tong refused to provide any details from the complaint or characterize it in any way. Even state auditors, who received the complaint and referred it to the attorney general, were willing to describe it, saying it involves allegations of management misuse of funds.

Not only would Tong not release a description of the whistleblower complaint, which could help lawmakers enormously in their investigation, but he refused to be interviewed about it.

Of course, I can't help but compare Tong's cone of silence to the press-friendly transparency of his predecessors, especially Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who responded personally to almost all media questions, to explain the work of the attorney general's office.

I still have on a corner of my desk a plastic chicken, with a tag "Chicken Dick" tied around its neck, sent out by a Blumenthal primary challenger, when Blumenthal, ahead in the polls while running for Senate, refused to debate.

I dragged the chicken out Monday and scratched out Blumenthal's name from the tag. I have no doubt the senator is glad the Ukraine whistleblower complaint is public.

I have renamed the toy Chicken Tong, for the Blumenthal successor who is happy to try to brush a whistleblower complaint under the rug, a now-secret complaint that may describe corruption at an agency run by a Democratic insider.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com