Raised eyebrows over a hefty price tag for a lectern have turned into questions about Huckabee Sanders and her office, which is accused of altering documents.
By María Luisa Paúl, The Washington PostArkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks Feb. 7, 2023, in Little Rock. Arkansas lawmakers on Thursday voted to audit the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for Sanders, delving into an unusual scandal that's prompted questions about the seemingly high cost of the item and claims that the governor's office violated the state's open-records law.
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.In June, Arkansas blogger and attorney Matthew Campbell began requesting public records pertaining to the governor’s security and travel expenses.
“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.” 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.”
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.
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.
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Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. An all-Republican House and Senate panel voted to audit the lectern's purchase, which has prompted questions about its seemingly high cost and claims that the governor's office violated the state's open-records law.
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Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
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Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
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Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
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Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Read more »
Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee SandersArkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Read more »