Sarah Huckabee Sanders under fire after audit reveals 'potential legal violations' on $19K lectern

16 April 2024

Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has never been shy about attacking Democrats as fiscally irresponsible, but Sanders — the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and an ex-White House press secretary for the Trump Administration — has drawn plenty of criticism for spending $19,000 on a lectern.

An audit of the purchase was released on Monday, April 15. According to the Associated Press, the "report cited several potential legal violations, including paying for the lectern before it was delivered and the handling of records regarding the purchase."

Sanders' office, in response, attacked the audit as "deeply flawed" and insisted, "No laws were broken. No fraud was committed."

But Arkansas State Sen. Greg Leding, a Democrat, laments that the lectern controversy has been harmful to Arkansas' state government.

Leding told Little Rock's KARK Channel 4 (an NBC affiliate), "This doesn't do any elected official or any politician any favors. Any time something like this happens, it's a bad look for us."

Democratic Arkansas House Minority Leader Tippi McCullough told AP, "We need to get to the bottom of it, and we need to make sure that people are held accountable and things are right going forward."

Will Jones, a 6th Judicial District prosecutor, confirmed to KARK that his office has received a copy of the lectern audit and told KARK, "It's important to note that this review is no different than any other file review sent by an investigating authority to the prosecuting attorney."

AP notes that the audit was requested by a Republican: State Sen. Jimmy Hickey.

AP reporter Andrew DeMillo explains, "The audit is the first of two that Hickey requested that lawmakers approved last year. The audit committee also approved another audit looking at the travel and security records that Sanders retroactively shielded from public release under the changes to the state's open records law."

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