(HorizonPost.com) – An audit requested by Arkansas lawmakers last year concluded that Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s office may have violated state laws when it purchased a lectern for $19,000, the Associated Press reported.
The findings of the audit were referred to the state attorney general and local prosecutors last Monday.
The legislative auditors cited several possible violations of law, including paying before the lectern was delivered and the handling of records about the purchase.
Governor Sanders’ office said the “deeply flawed” audit was a waste of taxpayer’s time and resources and insisted “no laws were broken” or fraud committed.
State lawmakers approved a request last year to review the wood-paneled lectern’s purchase from a Virginia events company in June 2023.
The $19,029.25 lectern was paid for on a state credit card which was reimbursed by the state Republican Party several months later. The governor’s office said at the time that the use of the credit card had been an accounting error.
After the audit was released, the governor posted a humorous music video on X showing the lectern while hip-hop music played. The 20-second video ended with “Come and Take It” beneath a black silhouette of the lectern.
According to the audit, the governor’s office failed to follow the procedures laid out in state law on the disposal of state property and maintained that despite the state Republican party covering the cost, the lectern remained state property.
Governor Sanders’ office said the laws cited in the audit apply only to purchasing and property from state agencies and not to constitutional officers, a position echoed in the non-binding legal opinion the governor’s office requested from state Attorney General Tim Griffin.
The Republican attorney general said in a statement last Monday that he had been “perplexed” to find that a “significant portion” of the analysis in the audit rested “on the mistaken conclusion that the governor’s office is a ‘state agency.’”
The Pulaski County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that it received the findings from the audit and would be reviewing the details.
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