Liz Brocker was the ultimate assistant. As the right hand of the Attorney General, Wayne Stenehjem, she did whatever he needed. Even after he passed away, she protected him right down to the last thing she could control. She deleted all of Wayne’s state emails, despite it being against the law.
The question of course, is why? Why would Brocker break a law that was so clear? A law that not only placed her at risk of losing her job, but at risk of prosecution. Clearly, it’s because of what’s in those emails. Brocker had complete access to everything Wayne had and did. She knew what was in them and what they could do.
Wayne Stenehjem had at least three serious problems facing him. The first being the Susan Bala case. Bala had been accused and prosecuted for a crime involving her tenure as head of horse racing in North Dakota. Wayne played a major role in that prosecution and conviction, only to have it overturned after Bala had spent almost a year and a half in jail. Upon her release, she sued the state and won, and was awarded $15.8 million.
Because of Brocker’s actions, Bala will never be able to access all the open records involving her case as she was entitled to have.
The second issue is a $1.8 million dollar cost overrun Stenehjem accrued that was never approved by the Legislature. The cost overrun was for construction on a building leased by the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office that was to be used to house members of his staff. In addition, it was a building that’s part-owned by a fellow North Dakota Republican and legislator. The money wasn’t there, and he still went forward. Not to mention the fact there’s plenty of room in the North Dakota State Capitol building.
That leads us to the third and largest problem of them all; and the one that ties them all together. That’s the resignation of Ray Holmberg. Holmberg is a long-time state Legislator out of Grand Forks, and a long-time friend of Wayne Stenehjem. As Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Legislative Management, an argument could easily be made that he was the most powerful Legislator in North Dakota.
Holmberg was in a position to take all his friends’ financial problems away. That is, until his resignation earlier this year.
You see, Holmberg was caught corresponding with a man in the Grand Forks County Jail. A man that was in jail facing 10 counts of possessing child pornography, which of course, led to the resignation of Ray Holmberg.
All of this was crashing down at the same time. Everything embarrassing was being requested as an open record and the new Attorney General, Drew Wrigley, was supplying it. In other words, he was complying with the law, and Liz Brocker knew it. She knew her time, or at least power, with Drew Wrigley was limited, and it was time to act. And act she did, but at the expense of the people of North Dakota and North Dakota law.
She broke the law. The question now is if she’ll ever be punished for any of it. Will she face investigation and prosecution as any other citizen would?
I guess Drew will let us know soon enough.
Good riding with you,
Joel
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