Audit says Arkansas governor’s office potentially violated laws by purchasing lectern for $19,000

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The governor of Arkansas. Sarah Huckabee SandersThe office potentially violated state procurement, state property and government records laws when it purchased a $19,000 lectern for the Republican governor, which garnered national attention, a an audit requested by lawmakers said Monday.

Legislative auditors forwarded the findings of the long-awaited lectern audit to local prosecutors and the attorney general, and lawmakers planned to hold a hearing Tuesday on the report. The report cites several potential violations of the law, including paying for the desk before delivery and processing records regarding the purchase.

Sanders’ office, which rejected questions about the pulpit, called the audit’s findings “deeply flawed” and a “waste of taxpayer time and resources.”

“No laws were broken,” his office said in a response attached to the report. “No fraud was committed.”

Arkansas lawmakers last year approved the request to review the lectern purchase, which had faced nationwide scrutiny over its costs and questions about public records that surround it. The lectern of Sanders, who served as press secretary to former President Donald Trump and was widely considered a potential vice presidential candidate, caught the attention of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel at the New York Times.

The blue, wood-paneled lectern was purchased in June with a state credit card for $19,029.25 from an events company in Virginia. The Arkansas Republican Party reimbursed the state for the purchase on September 14, and Sanders’ office called the use of the state credit card an accounting error. Sanders’ office said it received the lectern in August.

The item has not been seen at Sanders’ public events. Sanders posted a video on social platform X featuring the lectern and the words “Come and Take It” shortly after the audit was released Monday afternoon.

Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones’ office said it had received the audit and would review it, but said it would not comment further.

The auditors said in their report that they were unable to determine whether the cost of the desk was reasonable. The report said the three foreign suppliers involved in its purchase failed to respond to numerous requests for information from auditors on the desk.

Sanders’ office and auditors have questioned whether the governor and other constitutional officials are subject to the purchasing and property rules she is accused of violating. The audit says the governor’s office followed steps required by state law for agencies to dispose of state property.

“(The Arkansas Legislative Audit) maintains that the podium and road record remain state property,” the audit states.

Sanders’ office said in its response that the cited purchase and ownership laws apply only to state agencies, not constitutional officers. A non-binding legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin, requested by Sanders and released last week, made the same argument.

The purchase of the lectern came last year just as Sanders was urging lawmakers to broadly limit public access to documents about his administration. Sanders ultimately signed a measure blocking the release of his travel and security records after broader exemptions faced backlash from media groups and some conservatives.

The purchase was initially discovered by Matt Campbell, an attorney and blogger who has a long history of open records requests that revealed questionable spending and other misdeeds by elected officials.

The audit says Sanders’ office potentially illegally falsified public records when the words “to be repaid” were added to the lectern’s original invoice only after the state Republican Party paid it in September. Sanders’ office disputed that finding, calling handwritten notes on invoices “common accounting practice.”

The audit also says the office potentially violated the law when a shipping document linked to the lectern was shredded by a Sanders staffer. Sanders’ office said the document, the “bill of lading,” was inadvertently misplaced and a replacement was provided to auditors when it was discovered.

The lectern was purchased from Beckett Events LLC, a Virginia-based company run by political consultant and lobbyist Virginia Beckett. According to a breakdown from Beckett Events included in the audit, the total cost included $11,575 for the lectern, $2,500 for the “consulting fee” and $2,200 for the road record. The cost also included shipping, delivery and credit card processing fees.

Similar desk models are listed online for $7,500 or less. Sanders said the one purchased by the state had additional features that contributed to its cost, including a custom height. The audit said the desk included a light but no microphone or electronic components. Auditors viewed and measured the lectern at the state GOP headquarters, the report said.

House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough, a Little Rock Democrat who serves on the audit committee, said she wants more answers from the governor’s office about the findings.

“We need to get to the bottom of this and make sure people are held accountable and everything is okay moving forward,” McCullough said.

Republican Senate President Bart Hester said he was not concerned by the audit’s findings and said the legislative audit was wrong to apply purchasing and ownership laws to the office of the governor. Hester said “there could have been a cleaner process” for handling cases.

“More importantly, it shows there was no bomb,” Hester said.

The report had drawn unusually intense attention to the Legislative Audit Division, which releases more than 1,000 audits of state and local government each year. Hours before the report was released, lawmakers on the audit committee were allowed to view it in a room at the Capitol, but could not take notes or copy it.

Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey, who requested the audit, declined to comment Wednesday evening.

The audit is the first of two that Hickey asked lawmakers to approve last year. The audit committee also approved another audit covering travel and security records that Sanders retroactively shielded from public disclosure under changes to the state’s open records law.