Missouri Attorney General’s Office under Josh Hawley illegally withheld emails, judge rules

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office, under the leadership of then-Attorney General Josh Hawley, violated the state’s open records law by withholding emails between Hawley’s taxpayer-funded staff and his political consultants during his 2018 Senate campaign, a state judge has ruled.

Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem in a written judgment dated Monday sided with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in a years-long lawsuit against the Missouri Attorney General’s Office. He ruled that the office under Hawley, now a Republican U.S. senator, had “knowingly and purposefully” violated the Missouri’s Sunshine Law —and fined the office $12,000.

During his tenure as attorney general, Hawley’s staff used private email rather than government accounts to communicate with his out-of-state political consultants. Hawley’s campaign consultants gave direct guidance and tasks to his taxpayer-funded staff and led meetings during work hours in the state Supreme Court building, where the attorney general’s official office is located.

The DSCC had sought emails and other records in 2017 and 2018 that would have demonstrated the role Hawley’s political consultants played in the office. Hawley mounted a successful campaign against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018.

Hawley’s office initially told the DSCC it found no records, but The Star later revealed in October of 2018 that his staff had used private email.

“There is no genuine dispute that the AGO knew the Sunshine Law required it to produce responsive documents in its possession when it received DSCC’s two Sunshine Law requests, but made the conscious decision not to do so,” Beetem writes.

Beetem granted the DSCC’s motion for summary judgment — making DSCC victorious — and fined the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, in addition to ordering the office to pay DSCC’s attorney fees.

“The guy who was supposed to enforce the law, broke the law for his political ambition. He abused his office to win a campaign. It’s disgusting and sad,” McCaskill said in an email to The Star. “This is the new normal for Republicans in the Attorney General’s office. Politicize the office for political gain, and kick respect for the law to the curb.”

Hawley on Tuesday emphasized that multiple investigations, including one conducted by Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, hadn’t found evidence of wrongdoing related to whether he used public resources for campaign purposes.

Galloway investigated the matter but could not determine whether the law was broken because of the use of personal email and text messaging. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, also investigated and found no evidence Hawley violated election law.

Speaking to The Star, Hawley distanced himself from Beetem’s ruling against the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and downplayed the violation of state open records law that Beetem found the office, which Hawley controlled at the time, had committed.

“They didn’t say that I withheld the documents, number one. I had nothing to do with it,” Hawley said. “Number two, the substantive allegations as to was there was anything improper here done has been investigated multiple times and dismissed, by both the secretary of state and the auditor, who looked at this exhaustively.”

Beetem wrote that the decision to withhold records was made by public officials who had a personal and professional stake in the documents not being released and in the success of Hawley’s campaign. At a minimum, he wrote, the documents showed a questionable use of government resources.

Mark Pedroli, an attorney who represented the DSCC, called the ruling an enormous victory for transparency and good government. He also said the decision is a victory for ensuring access to government records during elections.

“Attorney General Hawley’s office illegally concealed public documents immediately prior to a U.S. Senate election against Senator Claire McCaskill for the sole purpose of preventing damage to Hawley’s campaign and affecting the outcome of the election,” Pedroli said on Twitter.

“Concealing public records in order to prevent damage to your campaign is cheating, it deprives competing candidates of a level playing field, and it’s illegal.”

Asked for comment, Hawley’s Senate office referred a reporter to Kyle Plotkin, a consultant and former chief of staff to Hawley.

“These allegations are based on Democrat campaign attacks,” Plotkin said in a statement. “They have been investigated multiple times, and no wrongdoing has been found, including by a Democrat State Auditor.”

Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, said the office was “reviewing the decision,” but declined to comment further. Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate last week.

Jean Maneke, a Kansas City attorney who frequently represents news outlets in open records cases, said she could almost count on one hand the number of times attorney’s fees have been awarded in Sunshine Law cases. She called the judge’s decision “amazing” for that reason.

“It is very seldom that I find a court that is so angry about what it found as the facts in the case,” Maneke said.