:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/7JIQM3HDX7QIFGXAMWEPMQCH3A.jpg)
Arkansas Republicans on Thursday approved an audit of their governor’s purchases after a blogger’s open-records requests unleashed a political storm that has resulted in claims about the state altering public documents.
At the center of the controversy: a $19,000 lectern for Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
What started with raised eyebrows over a hefty price tag has given rise to questions about the state’s handling of public information requests. Now, a Republican legislative panel will audit the lectern purchase, as well as how Sanders’s office handles open-records requests.
In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for Sanders said the governor’s office welcomes the audit, calling the situation “nothing more than a manufactured controversy by left wing activists to distract from the bold conservative reforms the legislature has passed and the governor has signed into law and is effectively implementing in Arkansas.”
Yet questions about the timing of the Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursing Sanders’s office for the lectern have led to scrutiny of the purchase - including from some in the governor’s political party.
---
How did the controversy start?
In June, Arkansas blogger and attorney Matthew Campbell began requesting public records pertaining to the governor’s security and travel expenses. Over the next several months, he received some records, but most of his queries were met with denials stating the documents were confidential because they could include sensitive details that would jeopardize Sanders’s security, Campbell told The Post. That led him to file a lawsuit Sept. 6, claiming violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
Two days later, the governor called a legislative session to address tax cuts and updates to the state’s FOIA laws, claiming new restrictions were needed to protect her and her family. The move was criticized and decried by opponents, including several Republicans, as an “assault on our republic.”
As a result, Campbell went back to the documents he’d received and Sept. 11 posted copies on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. Among them, a record of a $19,029.25 payment to Beckett Events LLC, a Virginia-based events company founded by a Republican political consultant and lobbyist.
The “weird item,” Campbell said, prompted him to file more records requests - which would ultimately show the payment was made for a lectern.
---
Why did the lectern cost $19,000?
The short answer: It’s unclear.
When asked about the price of the Falcon-style lectern, with its hourglass-like shape and large reading desk, Sanders said it came equipped with “a number of features,” though she didn’t give specifics.
“I’m happy to connect you with the vendor that builds and puts these together, but it’s not really my area of specialty,” she told reporters at a news conference last month. “I’m focused on things I’m good at. Building podiums is probably not one of them.”
Beckett Events LLC, which describes itself on its website as a “full-service events management company,” did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
---
Why are there claims of altered documents?
Sanders’s office emailed the Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services (TSS) on May 11 to inquire about prepaying for a “custom podium order” worth “around 10K” by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, according to the public records first obtained by Campbell. The agency responded: “We can’t pay until it comes in.”
On June 8, Beckett Events issued a invoice for an $18,475 “custom falcon podium” and a $554.25 credit card fee, records show. The $19,029.25 charge was paid on June 12 with a government credit card, according to documents.
A copy of a check shows that the Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the full amount of the invoice on Sept. 14. The next day, Campbell said he received a copy of the June invoice, which had a handwritten note reading, “to be reimbursed.”
In a statement to The Post, Alexa Henning, Sanders’s communications director, said “the state was reimbursed for the podium with private funding the governor raised for her inauguration.”
Newly released public records show the reimbursement note was added to the invoice three months after the lectern’s purchase and after Campbell requested the records related to its payment.
According to a Sept. 15 email from a TSS employee, someone in Sanders’s office said she’d been instructed to add the note to the invoice the day before. Sanders’s staffer “was instructed for either our office or herself to make a note on the original invoice that it was ‘to be reimbursed,’” the TSS employee wrote in the email. “As you can see on the attachment, she made the note. I asked if she wanted to date the note and she stated that she was told not to date it.”
Campbell said he got an anonymous tip that included the Beckett Events invoice without the reimbursement note. That was going to be the invoice copy provided to Campbell after his FOIA request, until it was allegedly modified by the governor’s office with the handwritten note, the tipster had claimed.
In Arkansas, tampering with public records is a Class D felony punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
In September, a whistleblower - a former state agency employee - came forward, alleging that the governor’s office had altered public records.
Tom Mars, an attorney representing the whistleblower, said his client has “more than a dozen documents” showing the lectern purchase “violated every rule” in Arkansas’s purchasing manual. The whistleblower also claims that state employees were directed to alert the governor’s office about incoming FOIA requests.
To prevent a digital trail about those requests, the former state employee alleges that they were directed to refrain from sending emails or sharing certain documents online. Instead, the whistleblower claims, employees were instructed by the governor’s office to deliver the documents on flash drives.
Henning, Sanders’s communications director, said, “It is absurd to suggest that the Governor’s Office working in coordination with its own cabinet agencies is in any way controversial or that this represents any deviation from standard practices.”
---
What’s next?
The controversy prompted state Sen. Jimmy Hickey (R) to call for an audit of the lectern purchase - as well as a review of any records relating to the governor’s security and travel expenses that have been retroactively shielded from public view following the state’s new FOIA rules. Henning said “we welcome the audit and encourage legislators to complete it without delay.”
On Thursday, an Arkansas legislative committee that conducts reviews of state agencies voted to approve an audit into both the lectern and how public records are being released.
The audits are expected to begin Friday and to be completed by the end of the year, said state Rep. Jimmy Gazaway (R), the committee’s co-chair. Mars, the whistleblower’s attorney, said he would share information from his client with the panel, along with “appropriate federal and local law enforcement officials.”