MARCH 28, 2024:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Thousands of emails of North Dakota’s late attorney general have been released by his successor — long-sought records mired in controversy and previously thought gone forever.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley released about 2,000 emails with redactions on Wednesday (March 27, 2024). Another 6,000 emails and untold text messages remain to be reviewed and released, he said.
The late Wayne Stenehjem’s emails were presumed lost forever, deleted at the direction of his executive assistant, Liz Brocker, days after Stenehjem died in January 2022. The deleted emails and a building cost overrun of over $1 million incurred under Stenehjem — both disclosed by Wrigley — shocked state lawmakers and government watchdogs.
Now the emails are part of an investigation into an ex-lawmaker.
The emails appear fairly routine, encompassing staff messages and office meetings, and cover much of 2021 to 2022.
Also, Stenehjem apparently conducted state business on a private email account, which is lawful but “does not defeat open records provisions,” Wrigley said Thursday.
Wrigley’s office recently recovered the emails. They were preserved in a backup of Stenehjem’s personal cellphone, extracted soon after his death and found as investigators prepared for the trial of former state Sen. Ray Holmberg, a Republican.
Holmberg, 80, of Grand Forks, is charged with traveling to Europe with the intent of paying for sex with a minor and with receiving images depicting child sexual abuse, according to a federal indictment unsealed last fall. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for September.
Holmberg and Stenehjem were friends and served for decades in the Legislature together. Holmberg resigned in early 2022.
Wrigley has said Stenehjem did not recuse himself from the Holmberg case, and he was viewed as a witness and was questioned at one point. Stenehjem wasn’t accused of any crime in connection with Holmberg.
Media sought Stenehjem’s emails in mid-2022, soon after Wrigley disclosed the cost overrun. Lawmakers raised concerns about trust and how the building project was handled. The project was for consolidating divisions of the attorney general’s office in one location in Bismarck.
Reporters’ records requests led to the discovery of Stenehjem’s email account being deleted, as well as that of his deputy, Troy Seibel, after he resigned.
Brocker resigned around the time reporters found out about the deletions done at her direction. In February, a special prosecutor declined to press charges in connection with the deleted emails.
The emails are being reviewed in conjunction with records requests, the Holmberg case and the cost overrun, Wrigley said.
JULY 22, 2022:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Republican North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley has dismissed bipartisan calls for an independent investigation into possible violations of the state’s open records laws by his office. Wrigley says his office’s investigation found no criminal wrongdoing. He says he considers “the matter closed.” Meanwhile, North Dakota lawmakers are pledging possible overhaul of the state’s open records laws after an assistant to Wayne Stenehjem ordered his emails deleted a day after he died, erasing more than two decades of historic and legal documents. Wrigley says he’s disappointed that the emails were erased, and that Stenehjem himself would have wanted them preserved.
JULY 20, 2022:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Democratic and Republican leaders are calling for an independent investigation into possible violations of North Dakota’s open records laws by the state attorney general’s office. At issue is whether there was criminal wrongdoing by a former employee who handled the deletion of Republican Attorney General Wayne Stenhejem’s state email account a day after he died. It is a felony in North Dakota to if a public official “knowingly, without lawful authority, destroys, conceals, removes, or otherwise impairs the verity or availability of a government record.” Republican Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner and Democratic Party Chairman Patrick Hart are calling for an independent investigation. Current Attorney General Drew Wrigley didn’t reply to messages seeking comment.
JULY 19, 2022:
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — An employee in the North Dakota attorney general’s office who handled the deletion of the former AG’s email account has resigned. Administrative assistant Liz Brocker, who helped clear the email account of former attorney general Wayne Stenehjem after he died in office, turned in her resignation letter on Friday (June 15, 2022). A previous open records request showed that Brocker asked for the account to be deleted in an email to an information technology employee on Jan. 29, a day after Stenehjem died from cardiac arrest. She wrote that the deletion was approved by Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel. State law says a public official cannot knowingly delete public records “without lawful authority.”
JULY 18, 2022:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley says the email account of former attorney general Wayne Stenehjem was deleted after he died and the account and former Chief Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel was deleted after he resigned. Wrigley calls the move concerning but not illegal. Democratic House Majority Leader Josh Boschee says the issue shows the need for “some sort of statute or policy to make sure we protect the integrity” of emails by state officials. Wrigley says Stenehjem’s account was deleted by an employee in January 2022, at Siebel’s direction. Seibel’s account was deleted in May, two months after Seibel quit. The Bismarck Tribune reports that the revelation came to light after Wrigley responded Friday to an open records request.
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