Former Special Assistant Attorney General Pat Monson, left, and Ethics Commission Executive Director Rebecca Binstock speak to the Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee about unsettled financial questions related to a building deal deal pursued by former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem's Office. (Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor)
A career attorney who assisted in an Ethics Commission investigation told lawmakers that she thinks the Attorney General’s Office is pressuring the commission’s staff to resign.
“I believe that what our attorney general is attempting to do is to drive them out,” Pat Monson, who recently retired after 46 years as a trial attorney, said Thursday. “If that happens, it is the state’s loss.”
Monson appeared before the Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee to talk about a recent Ethics Commission investigation report related to a building leased by the Attorney General’s Office. The report focused on Rep. Jason Dockter, R-Bismarck, a partial owner of the building who was found in violation of state ethics laws for voting on bills that included funds for the property.
During her testimony, Monson responded to previous allegations by the Attorney General’s Office that the report is riddled with errors.
“There is nothing contained in our report that is based on speculation, innuendo, falsehoods or anything that this commission made up to support its findings,” she said.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley and Chief Deputy Attorney General Claire Ness were not available for comment, a spokesperson for the agency said Friday.
The Attorney General’s Office and the Ethics Commission have been at odds since this year’s legislative session. In February, the agency told lawmakers that the commission would infringe on the state constitution if it tried to penalize officials who violate ethics laws. The Ethics Commission says the constitution grants it this authority.
Since then, both sides have openly accused one another of unprofessionalism multiple times.
Tensions reached new heights after the North Dakota Ethics Commission in June published its report on Dockter.
In the report, the commission said a lack of cooperation from the Attorney General’s Office hampered its investigation.
Wrigley has vehemently denied this claim.
In a Wednesday letter to the Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee, he called the notion that his agency was uncooperative “baseless” and said the report is full of “obvious errors.” He said that the commission had requested confidential documents he could not legally provide because they were part of ongoing investigations.
He called on the Ethics Commission to either revise its findings or withdraw the report altogether.
Wrigley also accused Executive Director Rebecca Binstock of lacking experience and professionalism, and of trying to punish the Attorney General’s Office for making what he described as good faith criticisms.
“For the Ethics Commission and their staff to now try to blame their delay and lack of diligence on this office is ironic,” Wrigley said in the recent letter. “Furthermore, their creation of a factually unsupported, retaliatory narrative, if left unaddressed, will chill other whistleblowers seeking to shed daylight on important irregularities in the future.”
Rep. Austen Schauer, R-West Fargo, called the tone of Wrigley’s letter “inappropriate for the state of North Dakota.”
“Is this just the way we’re going to treat each other from here on?” Schauer asked Monson. “Pointing fingers, making accusations and being upset and angry at each other?”
Monson said she agreed that some of the rhetoric in the letter was “uncalled for.”
“I know ethical and experienced performance,” said Monson, who serves on the North Dakota Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee and previously sat on the court’s disciplinary board and State Bar Association Ethics Committee. “I’ve worked closely for three years with the staff of this Ethics Commission, and they are highly performing individuals.”
Rep. Emily O’Brien, vice chair of Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee, called it “unfortunate” that such strong language was used in conversations about the building project and the Dockter report. She said public officials should take civility seriously.
“Otherwise we’re going to continue running in circles, and it’s just a mudslinging pit,” the Grand Forks Republican said.
The Ethics Commission recently asked its chair, Cynthia Lindquist, to arrange a sit-down meeting with Wrigley to discuss ways to improve the agencies’ relationship.
In an Aug. 7 letter, Wrigley declined the invitation. He said that while he wants to meet with Lindquist, he first wants the commission to respond to previous letters sent by his office on Feb. 19 and July 3. Those letters discuss concerns the agency raised about the Ethics Commission’s enforcement authority and its issues with the Dockter report.
In an interview this week with Forum Communications columnist Rob Port and Chad Oban on their podcast, Plain Talk, Wrigley accused the commission of retaliating against Ness, the chief deputy attorney general, for testifying against one of the commission’s bills.
When asked by the podcast hosts whether he thinks Binstock and the commission’s general counsel need to be fired, Wrigley said he doesn’t want to get involved in the commission’s staffing decisions.
The Ethics Commission’s report was the latest of several investigations into the south Bismarck building.
The property on Burlington Drive was selected by former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem’s administration as new office space for some divisions of the agency. Wrigley, who assumed office in 2022 after Stenehjem died in office, brought the project to lawmakers’ attention after learning it exceeded its initial projected costs by roughly $1.7 million.
In 2024, Dockter was convicted of a conflict of interest misdemeanor related to the votes he cast on bills funding the Burlington Drive property.
The Ethics Commission’s recent report called attention to a handful of questions it said remained unanswered regarding the building’s finances.
During the Thursday Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee meeting, staff with the Attorney General’s Office said the agency had resolved all financial concerns regarding the property. Lawmakers asked the staff to prepare and present further documentation at the committee’s next meeting demonstrating this.
North Dakota Monitor reporter Mary Steurer can be reached at [email protected].
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