No reason for further probe of AG's office, legislative auditor says

Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles said Tuesday there is no reason to conduct an in-depth investigation of allegations about the office of Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson because a preliminary probe did not disclose unethical conduct.

Nobles said interviews with seven current and former lawyers in the office revealed they "felt pressured to act inappropriately, and they gave detailed accounts of specific events. However, they also said that no inappropriate, unethical or illegal actions resulted from the pressure."

He concluded that their complaints didn't fall under the jurisdiction of what the Legislative Auditor can investigate.

Nobles acted after legislators inquired about complaints of turmoil and high turnover in the AG's office. Many lawyers, speaking anonymously, have accused Swanson of continuing an abusive management style that they attributed to her former boss, Mike Hatch, when he was attorney general.

But the more serious complaints involved public claims by former staff attorney Amy Lawler, who said Swanson pressured subordinates to launch investigations and file lawsuits prematurely.

"The individuals we interviewed did not cite direct and specific job-related threats from either former-Attorney General Hatch or Attorney General Swanson in connection to the events in the allegations," Nobles wrote. Rather, he said, they linked the pressure to the fact that they served at the pleasure of the attorney general and could be dismissed without cause.

Nobles said the Legislature should consider reclassifying lawyers in the office as civil service employees. A dispute over a union organizing effort has been the source of much of the turmoil in the office.

Reacting to Nobles' report, Swanson said in a statement that she expected the finding. "The union organizers have been throwing mud at our office and its management in the hopes that it will advance their unlawful organizing campaign."

Eliot Seide, executive director of the AFSCME unit trying to organize lawyers in the office, said Nobles' report was a "complete vindication" for the attorneys who had raised questions about Swanson's management tactics. He said it verifies "that there [are] serious working conditions, problems, there that are tied to their 'at-will' status."

But the chairman of the Legislative Audit Commission, Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, said the report had messages for both Swanson and the union. "If this continues as an 'us versus them', where your employees are the enemy, that's not productive," said Hanson.

"I think that the report, you know, is probably mixed for both sides there, and each and all should say, 'Here's a chance to step back,' " said Hansen, who said he would invite Swanson to speak before the commission.

Rep. Michael Beard, R-Shakopee, another commission member, said the findings did not rise to the level where he would "call out the National Guard." He also said that, with Swanson being a DFLer, "it would have been great fun, I would think, from a partisan perspective to turn the dogs loose and let trouble be caused -- [but] we try and stay above that."

Lawler, who was involved in the union effort and who was fired after Mengler's report was issued, couldn't immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Limited scope

Nobles stressed that his inquiry was limited in scope.

"It was not to prove or disprove the allegations" but to "determine whether we should investigate the allegations further," he wrote. He said he would have needed to find that the allegations were based on "reliable information" and involved misuse of public funds to pursue the investigation.

While acknowledging that lawyers felt improperly pressured, Nobles said in an interview it was unclear whether those complaints had merit. "What one person's impropriety or unethical possibility is may not seem that way to somebody else," he said.