AG Hunter Says One Thing….Does Another When it Comes to Public Records

by Jerry Bohnen

“I believe in transparency in government. I believe in blue sky laws.” Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, Feb. 2017

What Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter says about openness in  state government and what he does are two different things, based on his actions fighting a lawsuit about an auditor’s report of a public trust that controlled buyouts at the Tar Creek Superfund site. The audit was initiated after one member of the trust complained to then-U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s office about favoritism in granting contracts.

Some might call it ironic. Others hypocritical. Because last week,  Hunter’s office filed a motion to have an Oklahoma County District Court judge dismiss a lawsuit filed over the report by State Auditor Gary Jones in 2015. The suit was filed by the Campaign for Accountability, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C. after Scott Pruitt then Hunter denied its public records request for the report of the auditor’s 2011 probe of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Trust.

“While he was serving as the Attorney General of Oklahoma, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declined to bring criminal charges in response to an audit that found evidence of wrongdoing at the Tar Creek reclamation site,” said CfA Executive Director Daniel E. Stevens at the time of the filing of the lawsuit. “Why did he refuse to bring charges?  We don’t know because the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office has repeatedly refused to release documents related to this audit.”

To this day, Auditor Jones still feels two things: a) there was criminal wrongdoing and b) the report should be made public.

“We always err on the side of transparency,” Jones told OK Energy Today.

But not the attorney general’s office, despite claims professed by Hunter when he succeeded Pruitt last February.

“I am an enthusiastic advocate and supporter of the Open Records Act,” Hunter said in an interview with The Oklahoman. “I believe in transparency in government. I believe in blue sky laws.”

In his filing last week seeking dismal of the suit, Hunter stated the disclosure of records created in response to an investigation initiated by his office “would undermine the state of Oklahoma’s ability to engage with confidential informants in uncovering and developing cases.”

But at best as can be determined, there are no informants in this investigation. The only so-called informant was one member of the trust who stepped forward publicly.

Hiding the results of the report makes no sense. Scott Pruitt decided there would be no criminal charges and Hunter did the same. If no one was charged and “cleared” in the eyes of the attorneys general, then there is no reason to withhold the report. Unless it would really show criminal wrongdoing and the decision by Pruitt and Hunter not to file charges could not be supported by the findings of the State Auditor.

What would be embarrassing to anyone on the Trust if they were actually cleared!

A “bad precedent” is what one contact said about the actions of Pruitt and Hunter.

 

What some contend is the real reason now that the Attorney General is making a strong push to dismiss the lawsuit over the Tar Creek Superfund site is the ongoing probe of the $30 million in misspending at the Oklahoma Health Department.

That’s right! The Health Department. We’ve been told to expect the State Auditor’s report on that touchy issue to also be sealed and not released to the public. In other words, a “coverup” of what really happened at the Health Department and who was responsible.

Have we had a precedent-setting coverup of the state probe of the Trust that spent taxpayer’s dollars in buyouts at Tar Creek? It doesn’t look  good or smell good, no matter what Hunter claims about his belief in “transparency” of state government.

If he hides state reports now, will he continue doing it in the future? His profession of believing in “blue sky” openness sounds more like it will happen only when it serves him politically.