Pulaski County prosecutor Will Jones announced Friday that his office will not bring criminal charges against anyone in Gov. Sarah Sanders’ office related to the purchase of a $19,000 lectern last year from friends of the governor and subsequent efforts by Sanders’ staff to modify or withhold records related to the purchase.
In April, legislative auditors turned over a report on the now-infamous lectern purchase to Jones, the prosecutor for the state’s Sixth Judicial District. The audit report documented seven “areas of potential noncompliance with state law” by the governor’s office, including various accounting irregularities and the addition of a handwritten note on an invoice. The governor’s executive assistant, Laura Hamilton, wrote the note “To be reimbursed – LH” on the document months after it was first created — but just before it was to be publicly released.
The governor’s office paid for the lectern last June, then asked the Republican Party of Arkansas for “reimbursement” several months later, when blogger Matt Campbell began asking questions about the purchase. (Campbell is now a reporter for the Arkansas Times.) The handwritten note was made only after Campbell requested a copy of the invoice and other documents under the state Freedom of Information Act. Adding the note conflicted with language in a state law about tampering with a public record, auditors said.
In a response letter to the report, Sanders’ staff rejected many of the conclusions from legislative auditors. They argued that the note on the invoice didn’t violate the law and that the governor’s office isn’t bound by the same purchasing and accounting rules that apply to state agencies.
They also claimed, falsely, that the audit report showed the $19,000 paid to the governor’s friends was not found to be an unreasonable sum. But auditors said repeatedly in the report that they couldn’t make such a determination because they couldn’t get certain critical information: The out-of-state vendors who produced and sold the lectern refused to speak with auditors, and the governor’s staff apparently wouldn’t press them to do so. Sanders herself would not sit down with auditors for an interview.
Jones’ three-page letter to legislative auditors, which he posted to Twitter on Friday afternoon, appears to mostly embrace the governor’s narrative.
“Reviewing the handwritten note … we find that no criminal conduct occurred. The action of the Executive Assistant … did not constitute the offense of tampering with a public record,” Jones said.
He said Hamilton’s note was “not false” because the Republican Party did indeed reimburse the state for the purchase. Jones did not address the fact that the reimbursement was made months after the fact, and seemingly was made only in response to Campbell asking questions about the lectern.
Jones did not take a stance on whether the governor’s office must follow the same accounting and purchasing rules as state agencies (as argued by auditors) or whether constitutional officers are exempt from such rules (as argued by the governor’s staff and Attorney General Tim Griffin). But, he said, “it is apparent that there is ambiguity in the law.” Given the “multiple interpretations” of the law, he said, “there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the statute was knowingly violated.”
Auditors also found that a state agency responsible for purchasing turned over 140 pages of records to Campbell in response to a FOIA request he made on Sept. 11, while it turned over 153 pages to auditors when they later requested the same set of documents. But Jones concluded there was “no evidence” to show the “failure to provide the additional 13 pages” rose to the level of criminal negligence.
Jones was first elected to the Sixth Judicial District prosecutor’s office in 2022.
There’s still the question of whether federal law enforcement could be looking into the propriety of the lectern purchase. Attorney Tom Mars, who represents a former state employee claiming firsthand knowledge of mishandling of records by the governor’s office, has hinted on social media that something might be in the works. Asked in April whether federal law enforcement was looking into the matter, Mars responded, “I’m not trying to be evasive, but I can’t answer that.” He noted that a grand jury subpoena explicitly warns against disclosing even the receipt of such a subpoena.