JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. _ Taxpayer-paid staff working in former Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley's office may have met with his political consultants more than a dozen times in the months before he launched his U.S. Senate campaign in 2017, according to a report released Thursday by State Auditor Nicole Galloway.
The 17-page audit _ issued with 444 pages of attachments _ also says employees did not follow office policy when they used personal email accounts, personal calendars and personal phones "to conduct official business, communicate and schedule meetings."
The report marks the conclusion of a yearlong probe by Galloway, a Democrat, into Hawley, a Republican who served for two years as the state's chief law enforcement officer. It is inconclusive as to whether Hawley, now a U.S. senator, broke any laws, which bar use of taxpayer resources for personal or political purposes."
"AGO (attorney general's office) staff serve an administrative function and are in place to perform the work of the government," the audit says. "By allowing campaign-paid consultants to interact and advise AGO staff, former Attorney General Hawley potentially used state resources for political purposes."
Hawley said just an hour before the audit's release that he was filing a complaint with the Missouri State Board of Accountancy for what he described as "misconduct" by Galloway.
Hawley defeated then-U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in the 2018 election.
His attorney, Brian Barnes of the Cooper & Kirk law firm, claimed "exoneration" on Thursday.
Hawley criticized Galloway last month before the release of the audit, expressing concern with an email he said compromised Galloway's impartiality.
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."
Auditors are prohibited by state law from discussing specific audits before the audit is released.
On Thursday, after the audit's release, Galloway responded to Hawley, saying he spread "misinformation" prior to the audit's release, knowing that the auditor couldn't respond to the charges.
"The unfair attacks by Senator Hawley were an attempt to deceive taxpayers about the nature of this audit _ an audit he initially said he welcomed," Galloway said. "Career staff in my office are professionals, and are bound by professional audit standards. The abuse these dedicated employees and licensed CPAs had to endure is unacceptable."
"This is a pattern," Galloway said, referring to Hawley's criticism of a staffer to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who had donated to Democrats in the past.
"He was never interested in accountability or facts," she said. "He was interested in an attempt to discredit my office ahead of findings being released. I assume he did not like what this audit said."
She said it was "bizarre" that the "political machine of a sitting U.S. senator" would conduct "what equates to opposition research" on her staff.
Allison, the audit manager, said during a news conference Thursday that she often uses the term "beef up" because of her upbringing on a Polk County cattle farm.
"The email to my staff was casual in nature, and I only meant that I intended to add detail or finish the finding," she said.
The audit also responds to Hawley's claim of political bias.
"The inadvertently sent email from the Audit Manager cited in the response is not evidence of a lack of objectivity, rather evidence that the audit team was appropriately evaluating audit evidence," the audit said.
"Presented with evidence that satisfied one area of concern," the audit said, "the audit team removed a potential finding, and when presented with additional evidence to support another existing area of concern, made the decision to include that information in the initial draft of the report."
The audit follows reporting published shortly before the 2018 election, by the Kansas City Star, which detailed political advisers' involvement in the office.
The Star report led to a complaint by the left-leaning American Democracy Legal Fund to the secretary of state's office on Nov. 2, 2018. The complaint asked that Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft investigate whether public funds were used for the election. Ashcroft, a Republican, dropped the complaint in February 2019.
Ashcroft's inquiry focused on one statute that prohibits public funds from being used for elections. Galloway's audit examined Hawley's compliance with other laws, including one that bars state employees from engaging in "political activity."
Galloway's office found evidence of 11 in-person and phone meetings between Hawley's staff and his political consultants from January to July 2017.
She said Thursday that her office believes all of the meetings mentioned took place, and said there is evidence of other meetings, but that the attorney general's office did not keep documentation.
Between January and July 2017, according to the audit, Hawley's state campaign paid a combined $141,000 to the political advisers' consulting companies: OnMessage, Inc.; First Tuesday and HLC Strategic, LLC.
State law allows campaign funds to be used for "ordinary and necessary expenses" incurred by an elected office, but doesn't define what constitutes an allowable expense, the audit says.
"If better documentation had been maintained to show these interactions were solely official in nature, any appearance of impropriety could have been avoided," the audit said.
Evan Rosell, Hawley's former chief of staff, said in an interview with the auditor's office that one former Hawley staffer, Rachel Hassani, raised questions about the consultants' presence.
"She said something to the effect of, 'It's illegal to have consultants in the office,' " Rosell said. "And this is from memory, but I recall saying, I, you know, certainly don't want you to feel uncomfortable here. You don't have to come to the meeting if you don't feel comfortable. It's my understanding that it's _ it's perfectly fine for them to come alongside the office's work and help us in that respect."
In a response to the audit, Hawley's attorneys said he "hired two outside advisers to help ensure the Attorney General's Office would operate effectively."
The audit says Hawley used a state vehicle and a driver for some trips without documenting the purpose of the trip. A driver told the auditor that on Dec. 16, 2017, he drove Hawley and his wife, Erin, to Kansas City for a Chiefs football game, "where they watched the game from" a lobbyist's "private box."
In response to the finding, Hawley, according to the audit, "indicated he was asked to attend the game in his capacity as Attorney General."
The audit cites state law that says state vehicles should only be used for official purposes. State administrative policy doesn't allow volunteers, spouses and children to ride in state-owned vehicles unless they are involved in state business, the audit says.
Hawley's attorneys said his travel mirrored the practice of his Democratic predecessors, and said any "stops related to political activity were incidental to state business."
