After months of asking, cajoling and citing pertinent law, Little Rock attorney Matt Campbell sued the Arkansas State Police this week over attempts to keep public information under wraps.
Campbell, aka the blogger Blue Hog, is looking to the courts for access to information about Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders‘ travel expenses. Arkansas State Police attorneys denied his repeated requests, citing safety concerns for the governor and her family.
The case is assigned to Pulaski County Judge Herbert Wright, but no hearing date has been set. You can read Campbell’s legal complaint here.
Since June, Campbell has submitted a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to find out who’s hitched rides on the Arkansas State Police airplane as part of the governor’s entourage, and how much her family’s security detail is costing taxpayers. How much did it cost to send State Police overseas to protect Sanders and company at the Paris Air Show?
The kind of information Campbell wants to see isn’t mentioned as an exemption in the state’s Freedom of Information Act, and was always available under previous governors — including Sanders’ dad, Mike Huckabee. For example, here’s a fun story from 1997 about the first Huckabee’s King Air adventures, complete with information on who flew where and how much it cost us.
Arkansas law changed slightly in 2017, exempting security-related records for the Governor’s Mansion and mansion grounds. But travel records were not exempted.
It’s difficult to see how data about past travel might put the governor or her family in mortal danger. Sanders’ spokeswoman, however, seems aghast that anyone would dare question the secrecy. With her signature mix of obfuscation and outrage, Alexa Henning skipped right past questions about why her boss is hiding the identities of her flying companions on a state-owned aircraft and went straight to accusing you, me and that pesky radical left of endangering Sanders.
“It’s a new low in Arkansas politics for some on the radical left to weaponize FOIA and put the Governor’s and her family’s lives in danger,” she said.
Campbell, of course, sees it all differently. State Police did turn over the logistics portions of the records he was seeking, he said. That left him wondering how the portions being withheld — mainly expenses and passenger lists — could put anyone in harm’s way. The names of fellow passengers, specifically, were blacked out on the documents State Police provided him.
“Any claim that these records are being withheld due to the governor’s ‘safety’ is absurd for at least three reasons,” Campbell said. “First, ASP [Arkansas State Police] has already provided records related to the date, time and locations of Sanders’ arrivals and departures, and they don’t contend that that information would somehow put her safety at risk. So how in the world could knowing who flew with the governor as she ran around the state pushing LEARNS and doing photo ops compromise her safety if the actual travel information did not? Second, all of these records related to past flights, and I do not have a functioning time machine. So, again, how would knowing who she flew with in April jeopardize her safety?”
Finally, it’s also hard to see how releasing the cost for flights and hotel rooms for the governor’s security detail overseas could cause any harm now, three months after the fact.
“The very idea that knowing how much it cost for ASP personnel to travel to England and France could jeopardize the governor’s safety is absurd on its face. We’re talking about expenditures of state money, and whether it was as an entourage for the governor is irrelevant.”
The contentious and public lead-up to this lawsuit, which Campbell was candid about on social media, fuels increasingly robust rumors that Sanders will attack Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act in an upcoming special session.
Sanders is rumored to be angling for a Florida-style rollback that will save her from having to disclose where she went, why, or with whom. In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law that blocks access to information on his and other state government officials’ travels, both past and future. Journalists and taxpayers in Florida can no longer find out if DeSantis traveled to, say, Iowa, on a state-owned plane, or if he flew on a private plane on the state’s dime. Visitor logs to the Florida Governor’s Mansion and office are no longer public under this new law.
Passed by his Republican supporters in the Florida legislature, DeSantis said this law shielding him from having to disclose information about his travels and guests is necessary for his security.
It now appears Sanders is waging a parallel campaign. Capitol insiders say the governor may push for a wholesale gutting of our state’s Freedom of Information Act alongside another round of tax cuts in an upcoming special session.