Sean Reyes, while still Utah’s attorney general, stonewalled legislative auditors tasked with investigating his office — withholding travel records, appointments, his involvement with Operation Underground Railroad and details about his own nonprofit, according to a legislative report published Friday afternoon.
The resistance from Reyes and his office left auditors hamstrung, frustrated with an overall lack of transparency and unable to draw conclusions about how Reyes ran the office as the state’s top law officer.
“The [attorney general] has not been transparent with the public,” auditors wrote in the report issued Friday. “The AG has also not been transparent with us when asked to examine the governance of the office. We question who provides oversight and accountability over the A.G. if both the electorate and the Legislature are not provided with transparency into the activities of the position.”
Legislative leaders, in November 2023, directed auditors to do a deep dive into the attorney general’s office. The investigation came on the heels of reporting by The Salt Lake Tribune, and other media outlets, about Reyes’ frequent travel and his friendship with Tim Ballard.
The Tribune’s reporting found that Reyes accepted a free trip to the World Cup soccer tournament, took campaign trips that included shooting hogs from helicopters and was promoting and fundraising for anti-trafficking nonprofit Operation Underground Railroad and founder Ballard, who has been accused of rape and sexual assault.
Alan Crooks, Reyes’ political strategist, characterized the audit as a clean checkup for the former attorney general and an office with the highest morale of any state agency that auditors had reviewed.
“[Auditors] had access to millions of documents and other types of data including accounting, financial, travel, emails, texts, calendars, personal interviews and more. The only information that was withheld was private or protected,” Crooks said. “After over a year of extensive review, the auditors have affirmed that there was no misuse of taxpayer funds by the A.G. and no favoritism shown to any businesses or individuals in cases brought or declined by the [attorney general’s office].”
But auditors cited repeated examples where their work was obstructed by a lack of transparency. Examples from the audit included:
• “The A.G. provided incomplete information for the A.G.’s activities during the work week.”
• “We found that the A.G. traveled more for what we considered A.G.-related business than what was provided. In short, the travel information provided by the [attorney general’s office] did not appear to be complete.”
• “The A.G. withheld additional travel events with the [Attorney Generals Association and National Association of Attorneys General]. … Some of the withheld events included international travel.”
• “While we found that there was some involvement by the A.G. in [Operation Underground Railroad] and other nonprofits, we are unable to determine the full extent of the involvement due to a lack of transparency from the A.G.”
• “We received some information from the A.G., but through our investigatory processes we were able to determine that much of the AG’s involvement with nonprofits was withheld.”
• “The A.G. was not transparent regarding the time spent during the work week at a private barber shop.”
The audit corroborates more than two years of reporting by The Tribune on Reyes’ travel, his connection to Ballard, his own nonprofit, his use of a private club to conduct official state business and a general lack of transparency in the office.
Mac’s Place and OUR
Though not named in the report, Mac’s Place — an exclusive speakeasy-style club that includes barber and massage services and shoeshines in downtown Salt Lake City — is the club where Reyes hosts dozens of official meetings.
Memberships run from between $399 a month up to $50,000 a year for corporate memberships.
After going to court to get Reyes’ calendar records, The Tribune identified 30 official meetings Reyes held at the location. Auditors said, based on a reliable source, there were at least 50 such official meetings at Mac’s Place.
Throughout the process, auditors wrote, Reyes’ office, citing attorney-client privilege, withheld information from auditors even though similar documents that auditors gathered through other means showed the information withheld did not meet the privilege criteria.
With regard to Ballard and OUR, the audit said that Reyes used his position as attorney general to promote and fundraise for the nonprofit.
The Tribune has previously reported how Reyes connected with Ballard in 2013 and in the ensuing years participated in a widely publicized operation aimed at rescuing trafficked children, spoke on numerous panels and podcasts promoting Ballard, and was given a producer credit on “Sound of Freedom,” a movie based loosely on Ballard’s story.
“We discovered communications where the A.G. stated that he represents both the state of Utah and OUR,” auditors wrote in their report. “He has also leveraged his position and oversight authority to promote OUR.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes speaks in his office about a lawsuit filed by Utah and other states against Google, Wednesday, July 7, 2021.
The audit references one instance where Reyes, citing his responsibility in overseeing nonprofits, personally vouched for OUR’s trustworthiness. His closeness with OUR combined with his duty to watchdog nonprofits created a perceived conflict of interest. However, the auditors said that “due to a lack of transparency regarding the A.G.’s level of involvement with OUR, we could not adequately assess the potential risks.”
Two of the women accusing Ballard of sexual misconduct — Kira Lynch and Celeste Borys — attended the presentation of the audit Friday, but said they saw little new information regarding the ties between Reyes and Ballard.
“I wasn’t surprised, but I feel disappointed in the lack of accountability of what they’re going to do about him not giving up the information they were supposed to,” Lynch said afterward. “He didn’t turn over any of that information and that’s really disappointing. So is he just going to get away with that? Is that how it works?”
Similarly, Reyes’ own nonprofit — The Love All, Value All Foundation (LAVA) — created an unusual situation. It is “uncommon” for sitting attorneys general to also run a nonprofit, auditors concluded, posing the potential for another conflict.
The Tribune reported in October 2023 that Reyes was touting LAVA’s work with other charitable organizations, most of which had not heard of LAVA and were not aware he was using their groups’ names in its promotional materials. LAVA was disbanded last year.
The auditors charted out a spiral where the perception of conflicts combined with a lack of transparency could lead to a loss of public trust which, in turn, could create the perception of more conflicts and a continuation of the cycle.
Beyond the lack of transparency to auditors, a survey conducted as part of the audit showed that staff viewed Reyes as disengaged from the work the office did.
Nine out of 10 employees surveyed disagreed or strongly disagreed when asked if Reyes had visited their workplace. When asked if he was involved in the operations of their division, 63% of employees disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. The auditors said Reyes attended just two division directors’ meetings in a 21-month span but attended every meeting after the legislative audit was requested.
Still, 64% of those surveyed said that the attorney general displays strong leadership for the office.
The auditors recommended that the attorney general require more transparency and establish better internal management practices and for the Legislature to consider limiting the attorney general’s involvement in nonprofit organizations.
Recently elected Attorney General Derek Brown, who received a draft of the audit weeks before its release, resigned from his position on several nonprofit boards in order to avoid potential conflicts and has been releasing a weekly calendar of his meetings.
In his formal response to the audit, Brown said that he implementing the auditors’ recommendations.
“Since taking office earlier this month,” Brown said in a statement, “I have kept my campaign promises by releasing my calendar to the public, meeting with legislators, doing interviews with the press, establishing an Executive Ethics Committee, meeting with our client agencies, and getting to know so many of the dedicated attorneys and staff members in the office.
This story is developing and will be updated.
