The 68-page audit, released Monday — six months after the Legislature’s approval, says Sanders’ office potentially violated state laws by shredding a document that should have been preserved and mishandling the process purchase. At the end of their report, they said they forwarded their findings to the Sixth Judicial District Attorney and the state attorney general.
Last week, before the legislative auditors’ findings were released, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) said in a letter to Sanders that the governor’s office was not subject to state laws. ‘Statement on purchases.
Sanders’ office called the audit findings “deeply flawed” and a “waste of taxpayer time and resources” in a written statement provided to The Washington Post. “No laws were broken,” according to the governor’s office. “No fraud was committed.”
On Monday, Sanders posted on social media a very stylized 20 seconds video that appeared timed for the release of the report’s findings. It ends with the silhouette of a lectern atop the words “COME AND TAKE IT”.
The report was the only item on the agenda at a Tuesday meeting of state representatives and senators from the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. Judd Deere, Sanders’ deputy chief of staff, told lawmakers at the meeting that the lectern was in the governor’s office. He said officials did not use it while legislative auditors conducted their investigation, but planned to put it into use once it was completed.
In early February, the governor’s staff contacted Salem Strategies, a Virginia-based company that the office had hired to coordinate Sanders’ inauguration events, to request information about portable “hawk-style” lecterns, according to the report. The following month, the company returned a draft design for such a desk with a cost estimate of $10,000 to $15,000, it found. But around the same time, another staffer requested estimates from an Arkansas-based audio-visual equipment dealer, who returned estimates ranging from $800 to $1,500, it says. In their report, auditors said they found similar desks online selling for between $7,000 and $11,575.
In June, Arkansas blogger and attorney Matthew Campbell began filing public records requests regarding the governor’s security and travel expenses, he told the Washington Post in October. Over the next few months, authorities handed over some files to him, but responded to most of his requests with refusals. They said releasing the documents would jeopardize Sanders’ safety, Campbell said. That led him to file a lawsuit Sept. 6, alleging officials violated the state’s Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
Two days later, Sanders called a legislative session to discuss tax cuts and updating the state’s FOIA laws, saying new restrictions were needed to protect her and her family. Opponents, including several Republicans, criticized the decision as an “aggression against our republic.”
As a result, Campbell returned to the documents he had received and, on September 11, published copies on
On September 14, Sanders’ deputy chief of staff asked the Arkansas Republican Party to reimburse the state for the purchase of the lectern and that same day the party issued a check for $19,029.25, three months after purchase. According to Campbell, the reimbursement occurred several days after he made his FOIA request for the records and a day before the state’s response.
Campbell’s tweets ignited a firestorm, which led to national coverage of what became known as #PodiumGate. The controversy led Sen. Jimmy Hickey Jr. (R) to call for an audit, leading to Monday’s report.
Under questioning during Tuesday’s hearing, Deere said no member of the governor’s staff had been fired or disciplined for their actions regarding the lectern purchase and government documents about it.
“Neither should they be,” he added.
María Luisa Paúl contributed to this report.
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