Politics
Embattled Soros-backed prosecutor, facing Missouri AG effort to oust her, now gets 2024 challenger
The George Soros-bankrolled prosecutor in St. Louis who’s facing a legal effort by Missouri’s attorney general to fire her for allegedly neglecting her duties now has another hurdle to overcome: A challenger for next year’s election who similarly claims the incumbent isn’t doing her job.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner is in a legal fight to hold onto her position as Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey seeks to fire her, claiming the prosecutor isn’t enforcing the law and protecting public safety.
With Gardner under mounting pressure, criminal defense attorney David Mueller announced this week that he’ll run for St. Louis circuit attorney, making him the first person to challenge the Soros-backed incumbent.
Mueller, 37, is a St. Louis native and political novice but thinks his city is at an inflection point and needs immediate change.
In a Jan. 13, 2020 file photo, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner speaks in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jim Salter)
SOROS-BACKED PROSECUTOR MIRED IN SCANDAL FACING NEW COMPLAINTS OF NEGLIGENCE, MISCONDUCT
“We’re losing 7,000 residents a year,” he told the Riverfront Times, a local newspaper. “We’re going to go from the 20th largest [metro region] in the country to the 30th in a decade. If we don’t change it now, the next Busch Stadium is going to be built in Pacific.”
“We have to keep people; we have to attract people,” continued Mueller. “We’ve got the new NGA going in. It’s an opportunity. People are excited about the city. They’re excited about Cortex. But if we fail in this moment, I really believe that the city is in danger.”
Mueller, who previously worked as a public defender in the St. Louis County trial office, said he voted for Gardner, whom he said hasn’t lived up to the promises of the racial justice platform on which she campaigned. He cited the case of Levi Henning, a client of his who was prosecuted by Gardner’s office, as what ultimately motivated him to run for circuit attorney.
In March 2021, Henning, 21, was charged with murder. Five months later, police processed DNA evidence collected from the scene that suggested someone else was there. According to Mueller, however, the Circuit Attorney’s Office waited six months to disclose that evidence to him and still didn’t drop the charges. He also said prosecutors had ballistics evidence tying the killing to a murder committed by another man but sat on it for over a year.
Last month, Gardner’s office dropped the charges against Henning.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, right, and Ronald Sullivan, a Harvard law professor, arrive at the Civil Courts building on May 14, 2018. (Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
SOROS-BACKED PROSECUTOR PUSHED BY MISSOURI AG TO RESIGN HAS HISTORY OF SCANDALS, ALLEGED MISCONDUCT
“When I think about systemic problems in [Gardner’s] office, I think about my clients, the young men sitting in the Justice Center without any hope of resolution in a timely fashion,” said Mueller. “It’s not justice to hold somebody for a year before you can get a case for the grand jury.”
Gardner is one of the first prosecutors whom Soros, a liberal billionaire and Democrat mega-donor, bankrolled in 2016 and again for her reelection in 2020. She announced last month that she’ll seek a third term.
The Henning case echoes a recent wave of bad headlines for the circuit attorney. Last week, for example, a St. Louis judge sanctioned Gardner’s office for withholding evidence in a double-homicide case and for allowing the suspect out on bond.
“The court finds that there have been repeated delays by the state in obtaining discovery and providing it to the defense,” the judge wrote. “There has been a lack of diligence on the part of the state in following up and providing discovery to the defendant in a timely fashion. As a result of the state’s actions and lack of diligence, the court grants defendant’s second motion for sanctions.”
In a separate case, St. Louis prosecutors dismissed and refiled charges against two men accused of killing a father and his 7-year-old daughter, likely pushing back the trial by months. According to an investigation by local CBS affiliate KMOV, the reason for the dismissal and refiling is that “the prosecutors weren’t ready for trial,” which was set to take place in a matter of days.
Criminal defense attorney David Mueller is challenging incumbent St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner in the 2024 elections. (Screenshot from Twitter)
Dismissing and refiling cases has become increasingly common as Gardner’s understaffed office, which has lost several lawyers in recent years, has struggled to prepare for trials, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch analysis.
On Thursday, Gardner’s office seemed to blame police for having to dismiss and refile the double-murder case: “In this case, the CAO was not provided evidence in a timely manner due to acknowledged staffing challenges at the police department,” Gardner spokeswoman Allison Hawk said in a statement.
The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association responded by lambasting Gardner’s office for trying to shift the blame: “Police officers shouldn’t be made scapegoats for an overworked, backlogged and mismanaged Circuit Attorney’s Office,” the union said in a statement.
On Friday, meanwhile, the attorney for a man accused of striking teenage volleyball player Janae Edmonson with his car and causing her to lose her legs entered a not guilty plea on behalf of his client, but a judge had to print a copy of the indictment for him in court. That’s because Daniel Riley’s attorney told the presiding judge that he never got a copy of the indictment for his client from Gardner’s Office, so the judge printed one for him while he was in the courtroom, according to local reports.
Edmonson lost her legs in the incident while visiting St. Louis with her volleyball team. Riley, the man charged with assault, armed criminal action and operating a motor vehicle without a valid license, was out on bail awaiting trial for an armed robbery from 2020 and had violated the terms of his bond at least 50 times, according to local reports.
Kimberly Gardner (David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images | AP Photo/Jim Salter)
However, there’s no record of Gardner’s office, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with bond conditions and revoking them when those terms are violated, asking for Riley’s bond to be revoked.
In February, following the Edmonson matter, Bailey filed a petition quo warranto, the legal mechanism under state statute that allows the attorney general to remove a prosecutor who neglects her duties.
“This is about a quantum of evidence that demonstrates her failure to prosecute cases, failure to inform and confer with victims in cases and failure to file new cases that are referred by law enforcement agencies,” Bailey told Fox News Digital at the time of the filing.
He separately said in a statement that Gardner is “creating” victims instead of “protecting” them.
Bailey claims nearly 12,000 criminal cases have been dismissed to what he calls Gardner’s failures. He also says more than 9,000 cases were thrown out as they were about to go to trial, forcing judges to dismiss more than 2,000 cases due to what Bailey described as a failure to provide defendants with evidence and speedy trials.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (Bloomberg via Getty Images)
DEM ATTORNEY KIM GARDNER HIT WITH SUBPOENA AMID LEGAL BATTLE TO REMOVE HER FROM OFFICE
On Tuesday, Gardner responded to Bailey’s allegations in a legal filing.
“His amended petition is a gross power grab, an affront to the liberties of all Missourians and the democratic process,” said Gardner. “If the attorney general or the political interests behind his petition were truly concerned about crime in St. Louis, they would seek to assist with resources.”
Gardner, who’s refused to leave office amid Bailey’s probe, has called his efforts a political witch hunt and a form of “voter suppression,” suggesting racism and sexism are behind some of the criticism against her.
Mueller agreed that Gardner has been the victim of racist and sexist attacks for years: “But unfortunately, what’s also true is that for six years, she has blamed everyone else for everything that was happening,” he told the Riverfront Times.
“The problem is that she’s fighting everybody all the time,” he added. “Not just the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, not just the Ethical Society of Police, she’s fighting every single one of the judges. She’s fighting the mayor’s office, she’s fighting the Board of Aldermen, she’s fighting the treasurer and the comptroller. And now she’s fighting with the attorney general’s office.”
George Soros delivering a speech during the 2023 Munich Security Conference. (Open Society Foundations/YouTube/Video screenshot)
SOROS-BACKED KIM GARDNER NEEDS TO BE IMPEACHED ‘YESTERDAY’: LEO TERRELL
Mueller was adamant that he doesn’t support Bailey’s efforts to fire Gardner, calling it “not appropriate.” At the same time, however, he hit the incumbent for building up a backlog of cases without ever actually prosecuting any of them herself.
“Miss Gardner does not have a caseload. I don’t know of any case she’s first chaired since her time in the Circuit Attorney’s Office,” he says. “You have to address the backlog first. For me, that means doing it yourself. You need a lot of help. But I’m willing to lead from the front.”
Gardner’s campaign website boasts that she’s “made jail and prison a last resort, reserved for those who pose a true public safety risk” while limiting “the arrest and detention of people accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies.”
During Gardner’s tenure, crime spiked in St. Louis, with the city experiencing near-record murder rates. Amid high homicide figures, Gardner has declined more cases, issued fewer arrest warrants, charged fewer felonies and prosecuted thousands of fewer cases overall than her predecessor. She has also deferred prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies as part of her reform initiatives.
Law enforcement investigate the scene of a shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Gardner says all this is part of her “platform to reduce the number of cases unnecessarily charged in order to focus on the more difficult cases for trial.”
In 2021, though, Gardner came under fire after three murder cases under her purview were dismissed in one week due to prosecutors in her office not showing up for hearings or being unprepared.
Three years earlier, the Missouri Supreme Court later publicly reprimanded Gardner for her alleged misconduct in prosecuting former Gov. Eric Greitens for felony invasion of privacy. The Soros-funded prosecutor had to drop the case after admitting she didn’t have evidence to sustain the charges.
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Fox News Digital reached out to both Mueller and Gardner’s office for comment for this story.
Politics
Texas court tosses billionaire’s defamation suit against Beto O’Rourke
A Texas appeals court on Friday dismissed a billionaire’s defamation lawsuit against Democrat Beto O’Rouke that was brought after O’Rourke criticized a $1 million campaign contribution to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
The ruling by the Third Court of Appeals in Austin comes more than a year after O’Rourke repeatedly made critical remarks about the donation during a failed run for governor, at one point saying that it “looks like a bribe to me.”
The contribution came from Kelcy Warren, chairman of pipeline company Energy Transfer, which reported about $2.4 billion in earnings related to the catastrophic February 2021 winter storm that sent natural gas prices soaring in Texas.
An appellate court in Texas has dismissed a Republican megadonor’s defamation lawsuit against Democratic former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, File)
Warren, a major Republican donor, accused O’Rourke of trying to humiliate him and discourage other Abbott supporters from making campaign donations.
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In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Darlene Byrne wrote that a reasonable person would view O’Rourke’s statements as “the type of rhetorical hyperbole that is commonplace in political campaigns.”
Dean Pamphilis, an attorney for Warrren, said the decision would be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
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Abbott’s campaign said at the time that it was not involved in the lawsuit. The governor went on to easily beat O’Rourke and win a third term.
Politics
Kansas Gov. Kelly taps DEA inspection chief to head highway patrol
- Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has named Drug Enforcement Administration Inspection Division head Erik Smith as the state’s next highway patrol superintendent.
- Smith’s predecessor, Herman Jones, retired amid sexual harassment allegations and federal lawsuits over policing practices.
- Smith, an Ellsworth, Kansas native, will take office on July 7. Until then, Lt. Col. Jason DeVore will head the department.
The Kansas governor chose a high-ranking U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official Friday to head the state highway patrol, replacing a retiring superintendent who is facing federal lawsuits over the agency’s policing and allegations that he sexually harassed female employees.
Gov. Laura Kelly’s appointment of Erik Smith came on retiring Superintendent and Col. Herman Jones’ last day. Until Smith can take over as superintendent July 7, patrol Lt. Col. Jason DeVore, who also was named as a defendant in the sexual harassment lawsuit, pursued by five patrol employees.
Smith has strong ties to Kansas. He is a native of the small central Kansas town of Ellsworth, holds a criminal justice degree from Friends University in Wichita, and served nine years with the Sedgwick County sheriff’s office, also in Wichita, before joining the DEA. He has been chief of the DEA’s Inspection Division since 2021.
Smith’s appointment must be confirmed by the Kansas Senate next year. Lawmakers are out of session for the year, but a committee of Senate leaders will determine this summer whether Smith can serve as acting superintendent until a confirmation vote.
Kansas Highway Patrol Superintendent Herman Jones (pictured) will be succeeded by high-ranking DEA official Erik Smith, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly announced Friday. (AP Photo/John Hanna)
Kelly had faced pressure from the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismiss Jones, but he announced in February that he would retire. In announcing Smith’s appointment, Kelly made no mention of the allegations surrounding Jones and the patrol and thanked Jones for his 45 years in law enforcement. In a statement released by the governor’s office, DeVore thanked Kelly for her “steadfast support” of the agency.
A federal judge is considering the legality of a patrol tactic known as the “Kansas two step,” in which troopers make traffic stops and then draw out their interactions with drivers, allegedly so that they get time to find incriminating information or get a drug-sniffing dog to the scene. The judge had a trial last month in a lawsuit that argues that troopers use the tactic even when they have no reasonable suspicion of a crime.
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Critics contend that the patrol targets motorists coming from other states where marijuana is legal. Kansas is among the few states with no legalized form of marijuana.
Meanwhile, a trial is scheduled in September in the sexual harassment lawsuit against Jones, DeVore and the state, alleging that the female employees faced a hostile work environment.
Jones has denied allegations of improper conduct, and Kelly has stood by him, telling The Topeka Capital-Journal in December that the state conducted two independent investigations and found “no substance to the allegations.”
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Jones and DeVore settled a third lawsuit last year, filed by two majors who alleged that they were pushed out of the patrol in 2020 in retaliation for helping female employees file sexual harassment complaints. The patrol restored the two men to their previous positions, and they received more than year’s worth of back pay.
Politics
WI GOP proposes giving Gov. Evers less than 25% of new state licensing jobs he requested
Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled finance committee voted Thursday to give the state’s embattled professional licensing agency a fraction of the new positions that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requested to improve application turnaround times.
Evers had included 80 new positions for the Department of Safety and Professional Services in his budget proposal. Republicans on the finance committee voted Thursday evening to give the agency 17.75 new positions. Thirteen of them would be temporary. The Republicans also voted to spend an additional $6.2 million for technology and equipment improvements within the agency.
The Department of Safety and Professional Services oversees licensing for hundreds of occupations, including doctors, nurses, construction and trades workers, accountants and realtors. Republicans have blamed Evers’ administration for lengthy agency delays in processing license applications and answering calls.
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Dan Hereth, who took charge of the troubled department last year, testified in March that wait times for license applications had decreased to an average of 38 days, an improvement on the nearly 80-day averages reported in 2021.
Evers requested 20 new positions for the department in the 2019-2021 budget and 12 positions in the 2021-2023 budget. But the Legislature approved only one new position each time.
Wisconsin’s Republican-run finance committee has voted to deny Democratic Gov. Tony Evers more than three-quarters of new state licensing agency positions he proposed. (Melina Mara/Pool via REUTERS)
Democrats on the finance committee railed against the latest Republican plan, saying 17 new positions won’t be nearly enough to improve the agency’s performance. Rep. Evan Goyke said Republicans can no longer criticize Evers for the agency’s struggles after refusing to give the department the people it needs.
“It’s not enough,” Goyke said. “You own any issues going forward.”
Republican Rep. Shannon Zimmerman said that the GOP doesn’t want to “overcorrect” with dozens of new positions. The combination of new leadership, the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and influx of technology should lead to further improvements, he said.
“We should expect they’ll perform better with fewer people,” he said.
Republican Mark Born, a committee co-chair, was more blunt, saying he hoped the department would “get its (expletive) together.”
GOP WISCONSIN BILL REQUIRING COMMISSION TO DISCLOSE ONLINE WHO RECEIVED PAROLE TO GET FINAL APPROVAL
In other budget actions Thursday, committee Republicans:
- Approved providing $15.3 million more annually for workers within the state Corrections Department. The move brings total overtime funding for prison workers to about $95.6 million annually. Evers’ budget called for providing about $47.6 million annually for overtime expenses. Lawmakers have been struggling to fill mounting vacancies within the prison system for years. More than 1,500 corrections officer jobs, or one in three of the total positions needed to run the state’s prisons, were vacant as of the most recent pay period in June, according to the department’s website. The committee’s co-chairs, Sen. Howard Marklein and Rep. Mark Born, said the committee would consider raises for corrections workers soon but didn’t give a date.
- Stripped provisions from Evers’ budget that would have used state dollars to backfill soon-to-expire federal funding for the state Justice Department’s Office of School Safety. The office is currently funded in part with about $1.8 million in federal COVID-19 relief dollars. That funding stream will expire in December. The governor’s budget would have backfilled that loss with $996,000 in state tax dollars. Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said in a statement that the committee’s move left him stunned.
- Approved spending $123,600 in the second year of the budget to fund three forensic analyst positions within the state crime labs. The governor’s budget would have spent $154,800 in the second year to continue funding four analyst positions. The positions are currently funded through federal COVID-19 relief aid but that money will stop in 2024-2025. Forensic toxicologists typically test for drugs, alcohol and poison in tissue, blood and urine.
- Deleted the governor’s plan to spend $547,000 over the biennium to add four more DNA analysts to the crime labs.
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The committee is expected to finish revising Evers’ budget by the end of June and forward it on to the full Assembly and Senate for floor votes. Approval by both houses would send the spending plan back to Evers, who can use his partial veto powers to rewrite the document.
Texas court tosses billionaire’s defamation suit against Beto O’Rourke
Kansas Gov. Kelly taps DEA inspection chief to head highway patrol
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