Missouri House will ‘look into’ alleged political bias in state audit of Hawley’s office – STLtoday.com

Rep. Robert Ross, a Yukon Republican and chairman of the House Special Committee on Government Oversight, on Thursday wrote a letter to state Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat, saying his committee would “look into” the claims during a hearing next Wednesday.

The House review follows a call by Hawley last week for an independent investigation.

On Twitter, Hawley published an email chain in which Pamela Allison, an audit manager, said she would “beef up” a section of the Hawley audit that dealt with the office’s and/or Hawley’s use of “personal email/personal calendar.”

The email, Hawley said, was supposed to be shared internally among audit staff, but instead was inadvertently shared with the attorney general’s office.

In the Aug. 29 email chain, Jonathan Hensley, deputy general counsel in the attorney general’s office, said the office was unaware of any confidentiality policies beyond the office’s long-standing practices, rules contained the agency’s employee handbook, and the state Supreme Court’s rules of conduct.

Allison then responded to Hensley: “I’m thinking I’ll just drop the confidentiality paragraph in the report and beef up the personal email/personal calendar section.”

One minute later, she told Hensley: “Please disregard that last email.”

It is unclear what will be included in the audit of Hawley’s office. The auditor’s office has yet to release its final report.

The state auditor performs close-out audits of statewide offices when an officeholder departs. Hawley resigned in January 2019 after being elected to the Senate.

“This is unbelievable,” Hawley said on Twitter last week. “Here Galloway lead auditor discusses CHANGING & manipulating the audit to make it more critical of my office or me.”

Chris Nuelle, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said the email chain was included in the attorney general’s office audit response this month, in which the auditor’s office and Hawley’s attorney were both copied.

Ross said that if the allegations were true, it would harm the auditor’s credibility.

“This allegation would constitute an extreme breach in the confidence the people of Missouri place in the role of your office,” he said.

“As a member who relies heavily on the findings of fact-based, unbiased audits that are meant to be performed by your office,” Ross said, “I am concerned by the recent claim that political ramifications were considered in altering the conclusion of one of your recent audits.”

Ross asked that Allison’s direct supervisor be made available to answer questions at the Wednesday hearing.

Michael Moorefield, Galloway’s chief of staff, responded to Ross on Thursday.

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.”

Steph Deidrick, spokeswoman for Galloway’s office, told the Post-Dispatch: “After Senator Hawley made comments related to the draft audit report … Auditor Galloway personally reached out in an attempt to discuss the audit process,” she said.

Hawley’s office said Friday it wasn’t aware of Galloway’s outreach.

“This office will respond in full when we are legally able to do so after the audit is released and all details, including transcripts of interviews conducted during the course of the audit, are publicly available,” she said. “The report will be released in the coming weeks.”

Galloway, who won a four-year term as auditor in 2018, is running for governor.

Hawley was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 after being elected attorney general in 2016.