Missouri House Will Investigate Dem State Auditor Over Alleged Political Bias
A top Missouri Democrat is being examined for charges of bias after Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said an audit of his time as Missouri’s attorney general was being manipulated for political reasons.
State Auditor Nicole Galloway, who is running for governor, was informed of the upcoming review last week by Republican Rep. Robert Ross, chairman of Missouri’s House Special Committee on Government Oversight, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Ross said that if the allegations prove true, it would damage the credibility of Galloway and the office she currently holds.
“This allegation would constitute an extreme breach in the confidence the people of Missouri place in the role of your office,” he said in a letter to Galloway, according to the Post-Dispatch.
“As a member who relies heavily on the findings of fact-based, unbiased audits that are meant to be performed by your office,” Ross wrote, “I am concerned by the recent claim that political ramifications were considered in altering the conclusion of one of your recent audits.”
In a letter responding to a draft of the audit, Hawley’s attorney, Brian Barnes, said the lead investigator altered the audit’s conclusions.
“The lead auditor assigned by Nicole Galloway to this case, Pam Allison, discussed altering the audit’s conclusions in order to make the audit appear more critical of Mr. Hawley or his office,” Barnes wrote. “On August 20, 2019, Ms. Allison learned from the Attorney General’s Office that there was no factual basis for concluding that anyone working with or for Attorney General Hawley had violated any confidentiality agreements or otherwise engaged in misconduct.
“In an email to colleagues in the Auditor’s Office that same day (but which she inadvertently sent to the Attorney General’s Office), Ms. Allison wrote: ‘I’m thinking I’ll just drop the confidentiality paragraph in the report and beef up the personal email/personal calendar section.’
“Such alteration of a state audit is deeply inappropriate, unethical, and potentially a violation of state law. That this misconduct was committed while the auditor was herself conducting a political campaign for governor only underscores the impropriety.”
Hawley Lawyer Letter by The Western Journal on Scribd
Noting that charges against Hawley were part of the 2018 campaign in which he unseated then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, the letter added, “During the pendency of this audit, Nicole Galloway announced her candidacy for Governor and hired McCaskill’s campaign manager, David Kirby, a political operative, as a senior state employee in her office.
“The involvement, at a senior level, of a political operative who personally promoted the very attacks against Mr. Hawley that Galloway was supposed to be independently reviewing is deeply inappropriate and potentially unethical. Additionally, it calls into question whether state resources were used for political gain.”
Hawley published an email chain of the comments on his Twitter account.
What is going on here? Is the Auditor’s office independent or is it just a giant political campaign? Is it legal to change conclusions of a state audit for political gain? Read for yourself https://t.co/UFgjsEYaIZ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 14, 2020
What is going on here? Is the Auditor’s office independent or is it just a giant political campaign? Is it legal to change conclusions of a state audit for political gain? Read for yourself https://t.co/UFgjsEYaIZ
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 14, 2020
Michael Moorefield, Galloway’s chief of staff, responded to Ross on Thursday, according to the Post-Dispatch.
Pursuant to state law, he said, “the Auditor’s office is prevented from discussing the work or content of an ongoing audit. As such, the representative from our office will be legally bound to comply with the aforementioned statutes during his or her testimony before the committee.”
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