Someone in Gov. Sarah Sanders‘ office instructed state employees to write “to be reimbursed” on a months-old invoice for a $19,000 lectern and specifically told them not to date the notation.
That’s according to a newly unearthed email published on social media today by Jay Orsi, a citizen journalist who obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The email was sent from Cassie Cantlon, a state employee who processes the state’s financial paperwork at the Department of Transformation and Shared Services, to two senior TSS employees on Friday, Sept. 15. Cantlon sent the email along with an image of a $19,029.25 check made out to the state from the Republican Party of Arkansas. The check was brought to her the previous afternoon by Laura Hamilton, an executive assistant in the governor’s office, Cantlon said, and it was intended to reimburse the state for the purchase of the lectern.
That purchase was made in June — three months earlier — using a governor’s office credit card.
“Laura was instructed for either our office or herself to make a note on the original invoice that it was ‘to be reimbursed’. As you can see on the attachment, she made the note,” Cantlon wrote in the Sept. 15 email. “I asked if she wanted to date the note and she stated that she was told not to date it, but to just make the note that the invoice was to be reimbursed. I also told her that they would not be getting any appropriation back for this and she indicated that she already told Judd Deere [the governor’s deputy chief of staff] the same thing so they are aware.”
Cantlon appeared to go out of her way to note the unusual and potentially illegal request to add misleading information to a three-month-old invoice that had already been paid.
“This email serves as my documentation to both of you what happened and the reason for this deposit,” she wrote.
The email fills in another missing piece of the puzzle regarding the invoice, which does include a handwritten, dateless note saying “To Be Reimbursed,” initialed “LH.” Another version of the same document does not contain the note. And it appears to back up claims made by an anonymous whistleblower that the governor’s office illegally altered and withheld documents in violation of the Freedom of Information Act.
The email suggests Sanders’ ongoing attempts to downplay accusations that her office grossly overpaid for a lectern and then had the Republican Party of Arkansas swoop in to do damage control are not going to fly.
Here’s a thread on X, née Twitter, to walk you through what this latest revelation might mean as Arkansas legislators and state auditors prepare to take a closer look at the books. The thread is by Blue Hog Blogger Matt Campbell, an attorney whose expert use of Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act initially brought the lectern purchase to light.
I don’t want to bury the lede at all, so let’s start with the money shot.
— Matt Campbell (@BlueHogReport) October 10, 2023
An email from TSS employee Cassie Cantlon to her higher-ups, the very day TSS provided the initial lectern docs, explicitly stating that Sarah Sanders office altered the Beckett Events invoice. pic.twitter.com/Bep2cO8wcM
Note that Cantlon bcc’d what appears to be her personal email address when sending the email, suggesting she might have held on to documentation of the unusual request in case questions popped up later. (Orsi redacted the personal address when publishing the email.)
Other emails and documents previously revealed through Matt Campbell’s Freedom of Information Act requests show that not only was state money used to pay longtime Sanders associate Virginia Beckett for the high-dollar lectern in June, but that no mention seems to have been made of having the Republican Party of Arkansas pay the state back for it until after controversy erupted over the questionable purchase.
That lectern became the butt of jokes and an object of intrigue in September when Blue Hog blogger Campbell discovered the hefty expense in state financial records and started asking questions.
The governor’s office allowed an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette photographer to take pictures after rumors swirled that perhaps the lectern didn’t even exist or that it was one the state already owned.
Other photojournalists hoping to capture their own shots were denied, but the governor’s office provided a patriotic, well-lit portrait with flags in the background and a nice runner. Even all gussied up, it’s hard to see how the admittedly nice-enough lectern could run nearly $20,000. Seemingly similar versions available online range from $700 to $7,000 or so.
The governor and her spokeswoman, Alexa Henning, have attributed confusion over the purchase to an accounting error, then said the governor doesn’t have to follow state procurement laws and procedures anyway. Last week, Sanders said the now international interest in what’s possibly the world’s most expensive lectern is being fed by grumbling complainers just looking to complain.
Henning did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday, but the communication office for Transformation and Shared Services did respond.
“The Department of Transformation and Shared Services has complied with the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, and if the Legislative Audit Committee determines to launch an official audit, TSS will fully cooperate,” their emailed message said.
The Cantlon email adds credibility to the claims made by the anonymous whistleblower, a former state employee represented by Rogers-based attorney Tom Mars. (According to the state’s transparency website, Cantlon still works for the state, as does Laura Hamilton, the governor’s executive assistant, so neither are the whistleblower.) Mars, who served as director of the Arkansas State Police under former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Sanders’ dad, has been relentless in calling for an investigation into what he says may be fraud, compounded by a coverup.
“Speaking as a former law enforcement executive, this newly discovered evidence is going to be devastating if Gov. Sanders ends up facing criminal charges either at the state or federal level. Based on the governor’s refusal to produce evidence of what her close friend paid for the lectern and this new evidence of a coverup, that now seems very possible,” Mars said Tuesday. “Under Arkansas law, conviction of or a guilty plea to even a misdemeanor offense involving this kind of misconduct would result in her immediate removal from office.”
Mars’ unidentified client has offered to share evidence and intel with Legislative Audit, a quasi-independent team that reports to state lawmakers rather than to the governor.
Legislative Audit is expected to soon get the green light from lawmakers to look into the lectern purchase and other transactions and information newly off-limits to the public thanks to Sanders’ successful efforts to roll back the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act in a recent special legislative session. A joint legislative committee that oversees the professional auditors is meeting this Thursday and Friday.
On Sept. 14, the same day Hamilton brought TSS the check from the Republican Party of Arkansas to cover the cost of the lectern, Sanders signed into law a change to state government transparency statute that allows her to shield travel and security expenses and information from the public. The change is retroactive to June 2022, six months before Sanders took office.
Joseph Wood, the newly minted chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas, was leading TSS through the summer as the lectern purchase was OK’d and processed. He was elected to head the state party in August, with Sanders’ strong backing. Wood was at the helm of the party when it ponied up the check to cover the lectern purchase. He’s been evasive with other journalists on questions about the payment and has not returned a phone call seeking comment.
Comments have been hard to come by all around, now that we think about it. Sanders has taken a hands-on approach when it comes to external communications from state agencies. In addition to her staff’s alleged meddling in citizens’ and journalists’ requests for public documents regarding the lectern purchase, the governor has asked for her team to be looped in on all FOIA and media requests across all state agencies.