Today, I filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Schmitt, his Chief of Staff and former Eric Greitens lawyer Justin Smith, and the custodian of records for the Missouri Attorney General's Office.

Here's why:

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In January, @MarkPedroli and I asked for records showing any connection between the Attorney General and 2 organizations involved in organizing the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" action at the Capitol: The Republican Attorneys General Association and the Rule of Law Defense Fund.

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There were a lot of records showing that taxpayer-paid staff were attending meetings with these political organizations during office hours, that they participated in a "war games" summit to plan for "election integrity" challenges if President Trump lost the election...

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...and that state Attorneys General were selling access to their offices to big corporations.

https://twitter.com/BigElad/status/1364335691149303813

Something stuck out to me: Although our Attorney General is very involved with these groups, his communications and calendar entries weren't given to us.

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So I asked the Attorney General's Office to send me their search records. I wanted to know where they looked for these records they sent me.

The Attorney General's Office denied me access.

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They claimed that my request was related to a potential cause of action.
What cause of action?
What did they do that might implicate them in a lawsuit?
And why did they think they could use the Sunshine Law to plead the 5th and hide records of wrongdoing?

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I wrote a letter explaining the law and asking the office to reconsider. Chief of Staff Smith replied. I want you to see what he said: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wXP1vzEhDIgfiXhNNKj4Ib_eKDl80uPE/view?usp=sharing

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Instead of giving me a simple administrative search record, the Attorney General's Chief of Staff decided it was a better use of his time to write a long letter citing a bunch of cases, most of which have nothing to do with Missouri or our Sunshine Law.

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He chose to quote lawyers for Eric Greitens and Josh Hawley calling me lovely names (by the way, that case is ongoing, and I'm waiting for a ruling at Missouri's Supreme Court). And he told me that he wasn't giving me records because I criticized the Attorney General.

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I wrote him back in less than 24 hours, citing many more cases and explaining how his argument made little sense and would allow any government entity to hide any record it wished since every Sunshine Request comes with a potential threat of a lawsuit if you hide records.

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You can see my explanation here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Fgf41GVyMDY3P0IJk-1MB02bXSA5LOx/view?usp=sharing

That was almost a month ago. He hasn't responded.

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One of the great things about America is our freedom to speak. We have the freedom to have our own ideas, to share them, and to be free of a government that oppresses us for our thoughts.

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Our rights include the freedom to criticize our government if we so choose. And you better believe I had some things to say when I discovered our Attorney General was selling our Attorney General's Office to the highest bidder.

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Our government has no right to retaliate against Americans for speaking up. Missouri's Attorney General tweets a lot about how terrible "cancel culture" is while literally trying to shut up his own constituents for whatever beliefs he perceives them to have.

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He's violating our Sunshine Law. He's violating our state constitution. He's violating the oath he took to protect our civil liberties. And he's trying to scare away anyone who would stand up to him.

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The Missouri Attorney General's Office can do so much good for our state. It can enforce transparency in government. It can protect children from abuse. It can help workers on the job, conserve our natural resources, go after scammers, and get those rape kits tested already.

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Until we get an Attorney General who actually wants to be our AG, who wants to represent us instead of representing himself on his way up the political ladder, We the People will have to stand up for Missouri on our own.

See you in court.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YsyYutYYvVMpuKs9TnsV1Grk9VqlyrD2/view?usp=sharing

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