(TheRedWire.com) – On Monday, an audit that had been requested by lawmakers found that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office decision to purchase a $19,000 lectern might have been in violation of state laws.
The legislative auditors looking into the lectern purchase referred their findings to the attorney general and local prosecutors where they noted that the purchase could potentially be considered to be in violation of state laws dealing with state property, purchases, and government records as the lectern had been paid for prior to its delivery. There are also questions relating to the handling of the records.
On Tuesday lawmakers are going to be holding a hearing on the report.
Sanders’s office has dismissed the investigation and has argued that the audit’s findings are “deeply flawed.” She has also claimed that the probe was wasting the time and resources of taxpayers as there have not been any laws broken or any fraud.
Last year lawmakers had approved the probe into the lectern’s purchase, which had been scrutinized across the country both because of its costs and because of the public records relating to it.
In June, the blue and wood-paneled lectern had been purchased from a Virginia-based event company for $19,029.25. The purchase was completed with a state credit card, and the GOP of Arkansas fully reimbursed the payment on Sept. 14. The governor’s office has since argued that the use of the credit card had been an accounting error. The lectern was received in August.
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