Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced today that the emails Deputy Attorney General, Troy Seibel, and Administrative Assistant, Liz Brocker, attempted to delete, have been found. The cell phone of late Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem has had the emails the whole time. Why they weren’t found earlier is a question for Wrigley. To me, it really doesn’t matter. Law enforcement now has them, and someday we will too.
Most of you believed they’d be found. We believed it wasn’t as simple as rushing out on a weekend night to delete them, and making sure IT did the same. In the end, we were right. We knew they were there, we just didn’t know where to look.
So what happens now?
We know from Wrigley’s statements, they’re in the hands of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, under investigation for whatever information they can provide in the Government’s case against accused pedophile, Ray Holmberg. The relationship between Holmberg, Stenehjem, and others in that circle of friends is well-known. There isn’t much in the area of political life that I’m sure they didn’t discuss. What we’re about to find out, is how much of that there was.
Expect Wayne’s widow, Beth, to almost immediately bring an argument against both the State and Federal Government citing that private ownership of those documents belong to her. But that won’t work. Any emails from both Stenehjem’s public and private accounts are subject to open records. Where business is discussed and done by a public official, the documents involved are public. Stenehjem himself ruled that in a case against Dale Wetzel of North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction. Or maybe just recall the eulogy of former State Senator Nichole Poolman, who stated that Wayne was the champion of open records.
What we don’t know yet, and I stress yet, is what’s in them. What caused Brocker and Seibel to rush to the decision to delete them? What did they know that we didn’t and now will? We know that’s a question Seibel and Brocker never wanted answered. The problem for them, and I suspect many people, is we are about to.
I have no doubt that the current Attorney General isn’t making many friends among the established Republican insiders. But that’s a price he has to pay. He’s following the law, and that law is quite clear. Those emails are owned by the taxpayers of the State of North Dakota. They deserve a chance to be read, and then decisions made based on what they say.
The sooner the better.
Good riding with you,
Joel
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