Editor’s note: Matt Campbell, the lead author of this piece, is also a key player in the unfolding saga. The attorney and blogger behind the Blue Hog Report, Campbell submitted the FOIA request last summer that revealed a mysterious $19K expenditure, as well as a subsequent FOIA request that revealed the expenditure was for the now-infamous lectern.
This story has been significantly updated since it was first published.
After a months-long audit of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ $19,000 lectern purchase from a friend last year, legislative auditors have produced a report documenting seven “areas of potential noncompliance with state law” by the governor’s office and referred those findings to Pulaski County Prosecutor Will Jones to determine whether any criminal charges should be filed.
Sen. Jimmy Hickey (R-Texarkana) requested the audit last September following public scrutiny of the governor’s purchase of the pricey lectern from Virginia Beckett, a paid consultant on the governor’s 2022 campaign. Beckett’s company, Beckett Events, does not produce or sell lecterns. The Legislative Joint Auditing Committee authorized the audit on Oct. 13.
A second, related audit request to look into information withdrawn from the public purview in 2023 is still in the “early stages” and will be handled separately from the lectern report, head auditor Roger Norman said Monday. In September, Sanders convened the state Legislature in part to whittle away at the state Freedom of Information Act by hiding records about her travel and security from the public. Hickey asked auditors to look into “all matters involving the governor or the governor’s office” made confidential by recent changes to state law.
Though the report released Monday covers the purchase of the lectern and its aftermath in exhaustive detail — it runs for 68 pages, including multiple appendices and a response from the governor’s office — auditors had trouble getting information from Sanders and her associates.
The New York-based company that manufactured the lectern never responded to them, nor did Virginia Beckett or Beckett’s fellow consultant and business partner, Hannah Salem Stone. Legislative Audit lacks subpoena power to compel out-of-state companies to respond to requests for interviews, and when auditors requested assistance from the governor’s office, they received little help.
Sanders herself “declined the offer to speak with or provide a statement” to auditors.
Multiple instances of potential noncompliance with state law are described in the report:
- Payment for the lectern was made before it was delivered.
- The purchase of the lectern was tallied as an operating expense, though it is a piece of equipment
- The state agency responsible for governor’s office recordkeeping, the Department of Transformation & Shared Services, was not notified of the delivery. That means the purchase was not properly recorded in a state information system, and formal purchasing documents or a detailed invoice were not obtained before payment to ensure the lectern met custom height requirements.
- Selling state property requires notice to the state procurement director and the Department of Finance & Administration. But the governor’s office sold the lectern and case directly to the Republican Party of Arkansas.
- A governor’s office staffer shredded the bill of lading for the lectern delivery, a potential violation of document retention rules.
- The governor’s office didn’t draw up a business expense justification statement until after the purchase was made.
- During review of a FOIA request related to the lectern purchase, Legislative Audit discovered three versions of the Beckett Events invoice, two of which contained the handwritten notation “To be reimbursed – LH.” The executive assistant to the governor’s office deputy chief of staff made the handwritten notes after the public record was entered into the state finance system. Adding the notes conflicts with language in a state law about tampering with a public record. Arkansas courts have considered this issue before.
Speaking by phone Monday morning, audit committee co-chair Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R-Paragould) described the document as a “very thorough report.” It details apparent violations of 10 state laws. The report stops short of assigning culpability for these violations to Sanders personally, referring to nearly all of the potential violations as being committed by the governor’s office.
While Sanders said she “welcomed” the audit when it was originally authorized last fall, her 6-page response to the report was anything but welcoming. Her office calls the audit a “waste of taxpayer resources and time,” disputes that Sanders or her aides did anything wrong whatsoever, and repeats recent claims from Attorney General Tim Griffin that the governor’s office is not a state agency and is not subject to general procurement rules.
Sanders’ official response to the audit contradicts statements she made Oct. 4, as reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“There are a number of features,” she said. “I’m happy to connect you with the vendor that builds and puts these together, but it’s not really my area of specialty. I’m focused on the things I’m good at. Building podiums is probably not one of them.”
Asked who approved the purchase, Sanders said “[We] followed the regular course of law, standard operating procedure for any purchase that would take place by the state.”
Sanders later said the lectern was specially built to be the right height to accommodate women speakers.
Sanders’ response also says Legislative Audit “failed in its application and reading of the law” and claims that even where the governor’s office has followed state procurement laws in the past, it has not been required to do so. Griffin’s opinion last week says the governor is not bound by state procurement and property disposal laws except for statutes that specifically mention “constitutional offices” or “constitutional officers.”
Attorney Tom Mars, who represents a former state employee who alleges wrongdoing by the governor’s office over documents related to the lectern purchase, said Griffin’s opinion was a “PR smokescreen.”
“Whether certain purchasing laws apply to constitutional officers is, at best, only marginally relevant to the matters that were investigated by the legislative auditors,” Mars said. “What’s more, the governor being exempt from those laws would not even arguably be a defense to [any charges of] misuse of state funds, fraud, or the alteration of government documents.”
Mars’ client was the first to blow the whistle about the altered invoice described in today’s report.
According to a tweet from Mars, the whistleblower “gave sworn testimony to the legislative auditors before a court reporter based on first-hand knowledge of the alteration and concealment of highly relevant records.”
Asked whether federal law enforcement was looking into the matter as well, 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.
Of special interest to radical keyboard warriors are mentions in the audit report of the governor’s office’s failure to comply with the state Freedom of Information Act. The audit report notes multiple times that Sanders’ office failed to provide documents to citizens in response to FOIA requests, recommends that the office “clarify the custodian of record for the Governor’s Office for purposes of FOIA,” and recommends that the office “comply with FOIA regarding provision of public information to requesters.”
The report includes a breakdown of the total $19,029 purchase cost: The lectern itself was $11,575, a travel case was $2,200, shipping and delivery for the lectern and case were respectively $1,225 and $975 and an unspecified consulting fee was another $2,500. The purchase also included a $554 credit card processing fee.
A document attached to the report from Salem Strategies LLC, the company owned by Hannah Salem Stone, says the state of Arkansas saved $3,000 on the total purchase due to a “Preferred Costumer [sic] Discount.”
Auditors found that the cost of the travel case, shipping of the travel case, and shipping of the lectern “appear reasonable.” They were unable to determine whether the cost of the lectern or $2,500 “consulting fee” were reasonable, however, because Beckett, Stone and the lectern maker refused to provide information. Legislative audit staff “made repeated attempts to obtain the specific custom specifications of the podium from three vendors, and none responded,” it says.
“It should be noted that similar non-customized falcon style podiums can be purchased from online vendors starting at approximately $7,000, as opposed to the $11,575 amount allocated to the custom falcon podium listed on the Beckett Events invoice breakdown,” the report adds.
On July 31, Virginia Beckett informed the governor’s office that the custom-made podium had been completed by Miller’s Presentation Furniture. On Aug. 9, it was delivered to the Capitol.
According to the report, the “Governor’s Office staff discovered shortly after delivery that the height of the podium did not meet order specifications” and planned to return it to be corrected. Measurements taken by auditors in October indicate the podium is a standard 44 inches tall, rather than the customized, 39-inch dimensions — “the Governor’s elbow-resting height” — requested by the state. It was never returned for correction.
Soon after the lectern purchase first came to light last fall, the Republican Party of Arkansas issued a check for $19,029 to the governor’s office. Sanders’ office suggested the reimbursement rendered the lectern controversy moot, they never meant to use taxpayer money for the purchase and that an accounting error was to blame for any confusion.
But the audit report says staff with both the Republican Party and the governor’s office confirmed reimbursement “was initiated via phone call” on Sept. 14 — months after the payment was made to Beckett Events but only days after media began seeking records.
“Prior to a FOIA request related to the podium purchase, made on September 11, 2023, there was no indication the governor’s office was seeking reimbursement for the cost of the podium and road case,” the audit report says.
The phrase “To be reimbursed” was also added to the Beckett Events invoice around the time the check was received.
The audit report at least puts one rumor to rest: The purchase was not entirely fake. A real lectern was in fact delivered to the governor’s office last year after money exchanged hands. Auditors note that it was “sighted and measured” by legislative audit staff at the Capitol in October in the governor’s office.
Despite insisting the audit report is “deeply flawed,” Sanders’ office touts that finding, among others, as vindication.
“The podium and travel case are real and exist,” the governor’s response says.