Sarah Huckabee Sanders' office is supposedly going to use Republican Party funds to reimburse the state for a $19,000 lectern put on a government credit card. "Scrutiny" of this oddly expensive item "deepens," reports the Associated Press.
The custom blue and wood-paneled lectern was bought using a state credit card in June for $19,029.25, significantly higher than prices listed online for other lecterns. The Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the purchase on Sept. 14, and Sanders' office has called the use of a state credit card for the lectern an accounting error. Sanders' office said it received the lectern in August.
Sanders, a Republican who served as press secretary for former President Donald Trump and was inaugurated governor in January, has said she welcomes an audit of the lectern but has also dismissed questions about the purchase. …
The lectern's purchase was first uncovered last month by Matthew Campbell, a lawyer and blogger who has sued the Arkansas State Police and claimed the agency illegally withheld public documents he requested about Sanders' travel and security. Days after Campbell filed his initial lawsuit, Sanders proposed restricting the public's access to a broad range of documents.
The big-league equivalent of card testing—probing to see if vulnerable accounts are being monitored. Sadly for whoever did this, the obvious potential for embezzlement, corruption, etc., under Huckabee-Sanders' administration means they are being monitored as closely as the law allows.
