After 14 months of extraordinary government actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the most high-profile violator of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lockdown orders appears to be ... Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

A May 23 story on the Breitbart news site published a photo of Whitmer and her chief operations officer Tricia Foster, unmasked in an East Lansing bar on Saturday. The two were sitting at a table crowded with 13 people.

The behavior violated official orders that limit the number of people who may sit together in a bar or restaurant. Seating is restricted to no more than six people at a table.

Whitmer admitted making a mistake and released a statement that read, “Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been committed to following public health protocols. Yesterday, I went with friends to a local restaurant. As more people arrived, the tables were pushed together. Because we were all vaccinated, we didn’t stop to think about it. In retrospect, I should have thought about it. I am human. I made a mistake, and I apologize.”

This is not the first time Whitmer has violated her own orders since a stay-at-home directive went out March 23, 2020.

Other actions by Whitmer or members of her family have appeared to violate pandemic-related guidance, recommendations and executive orders from the governor’s office.

April 2020

Whitmer appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” wearing a T-shirt that bore the words “that woman from Michigan” printed on it. The shirt was a play on a March 27, 2020, mention of her by then-President Donald Trump. Whitmer appeared on the Comedy Central show five days after his comments.

Her appearance raised questions about the origin of the shirt, given that a March 24 executive order from the governor had closed all Michigan businesses deemed “non-essential,” and T-shirt printing companies do not appear to be essential. Brandon Hall, who writes for the West Michigan Politics blog, raised the question in a complaint filed with the attorney general’s office.

May 2020

Whitmer said at a press conference that her husband had traveled from the state capital to the family’s cottage in Elk Rapids, Michigan, to rake leaves, a 184-mile trip. This was after a state website covering the pandemic stated, “Long distance travel is discouraged unless it is for a purpose considered critical under the governor’s ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ Executive Order.”

Whitmer’s response was that travel between different residences was allowed if both properties are owned by the same person.

That appears to contradict the state website’s directive, which said long distance travel is restricted under the governor’s order “unless for a purpose considered critical.”

June 2020

At the time of the George Floyd demonstrations, Whitmer posted on Facebook a photo of herself  marching shoulder-to-shoulder with other demonstrators, violating executive orders on social distancing.

July 2020

Whitmer attended a Michigan National Guard ceremony in which 620 troops and about 100 spectators were present at Camp Grayling. One of her executive order limited outdoor events to fewer than 100 people.

August 2020

Whitmer attended a memorial for former Michigan Gov. William Milliken, which was held at Interlochen Center for the Arts, near Traverse City. The venue, Kresge Auditorium, is usually considered an outdoor amphitheater. But it did not meet the definition of “outdoors” under one executive order, because it was fully enclosed on top and had numerous partial walls surrounding the seating. As an indoor venue, seating would have been limited to no more than 10 people for the event.

April 2021

Whitmer violated her own recommendations not to travel during the pandemic by taking a jet to Florida to visit her father and failing to quarantine herself upon returning. Weeks after making this trip, the governor specifically warned the public about the dangers of traveling to and from Florida.

Statewide, 282 Michigan employers have been fined by state workplace regulators for violating state COVID-19 orders.

Editor's note: The headline was changed on this story to more accurately reflect the story.

Michigan prison inmates who want to phone home must pay 16 cents per minute, a rate that far exceeds what is now considered reasonable and customary outside prisons. Some people familiar with the system say the state unfairly makes a profit from prisoners and has created a related "slush fund" that should be terminated.

Global Tel-Link is the company contracted by the Michigan Department of Corrections to install and maintain phone equipment in prisons. Under the contract, the firm must record and store prisoner conversations, and analyze them to ensure no illegal activity is discussed.

But an $11 million annual profit that the Department of Corrections is pulling out of the operation has drawn the ire of Bruce Timmons, who was a long-serving legal counsel and policy advisor for the Michigan House Republican caucus. He characterized the operation as a slush fund in written testimony before the House Appropriations Committee.

Timmons was blunt about what he regards as an abuse: “It is past time for this practice of excess inmate phone charges to be exposed and ended.”

The profits from the surcharge are sent to the Program and Special Equipment Fund, an account managed by the Department of Corrections.

Chris Gautz, spokesman for the department, said, “Almost all of that money is directly reinvested in prisoner programming to give prisoners the opportunity to develop their skills, including employment skills, and the use of that fund is dictated by the annual budget bill,” according to MIRS News.

The department has been profiting from inmate phone calls since 1991, according to Prisons and Corrections Forum, a publication of the State Bar of Michigan. According to the publication, prisoners used to pay the same standard collect call rate as the general population of the area where their prison was located. This changed in 2001, when the state contracted with Sprint to be the sole provider of prison phone calls. The Department of Corrections was guaranteed to collect either $13.5 million in commissions or 51% of the gross revenue, whichever was greater.

That money was placed in the department’s special equipment fund to pay for monitoring prisoner calls. Call rates for prisoners were then as low as 10 cents per minute.

In 2011, the department contracted with the current company. Per-minute rates were as high as 20 cents for prepaid calls, 21 cents for debit calls, and 25 cents for collect calls. The department lowered the rate for all calls to 16 cents per minute in 2018. Timmons notes that it was the department that asked for the original higher rate and commission, not the company.

Gautz says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when prisons were closed to visitors, Global Tel-Link installed video phones so prisoners could see the other party as they talked. The expense was covered by Global Tel-Link, and prisoners could make weekly calls at no charge.

Michigan is not the only state to pull profits from inmate phone calls. According to a report from the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, more than 20 other states have similar deals with companies.

Charging excessive rates in prisons is a bipartisan issue, according to the American Action Forum, a center-right nonprofit. It says, “The high cost of phone calls from jail or prison can be prohibitive for many incarcerated individuals and their families, leading to minimal communication, strained relationships, greater likelihood of recidivism, poor mental health, and behavioral problems among children of the incarcerated.”

The Michigan Legislature tried to close the Programs and Special Equipment Fund in 2011. Gov. Rick Snyder, however, suggested that the department could ignore the attempt because it was unenforceable, according to Prisons and Corrections Forum.