Drummond gets to work as the AG of Stitt and Walters’ nightmares

When an Oklahoma politician takes efforts to fulfill marketing campaign guarantees early of their time period and actually does the work, it makes headlines. Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s twentieth lawyer basic, deserves the consideration.

Watch intently, Oklahomans – that is what governing seems like.  

In his first three weeks in workplace, Drummond introduced he would examine the state’s misuse of pandemic funds, wherein a federal audit decided that Gov. Kevin Stitt and Secretary of Education/State Superintendent of Public Education Ryan Walters misspent Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) funds.

Much of the funding went to non-public college college students, who may obtain up to $6,500 in tuition reduction, and $1,500 grants got to low-income households needing training expense reduction. 

The audit discovered that “Oklahoma did not award all of its GEER grant funds in accordance with the CARES Act, federal regulations, department guidance, and GEER grant conditions as discussed in the findings below and the specific sections in this report.”

Walters did a blanket sign-off on all the objects the disbursement firm, ClassWallet, had listed as purchasable on its web site, which is how Oklahomans used CARES Act funds to purchase video video games, barbecue grills, smartphones and televisions. Following the audit, Stitt directed Attorney General John O’Connor to sue ClassWallet to return the $650,000 Oklahoma paid the Florida firm to administrate the GEER funds. 

Now, Drummond has dropped O’Connor’s lawsuit towards ClassWallet. It at all times felt like the lawsuit was face-saving on the half of the governor, an try to draw consideration from Walters’ and Stitt’s potential illegality in the matter. Now, we have now an opportunity to discover out if the governor was attempting to go the buck.

The hits maintain coming: on his first day in workplace, Drummond took again the Epic Charter Schools case. Drummond additionally reopened the Swadley’s Foggy Bottom Kitchen case, which O’Connor punted to the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s workplace.

During his marketing campaign, Drummond emphasised that it was necessary that Oklahoma have an lawyer basic that was not appointed by its governor. We are actually beginning to study what that really means. 

In reality, it appears like Oklahoma didn’t have an lawyer basic for about 18 months after Mike Hunter resigned. Instead, we had an lawyer basic performing as Stitt’s private lawyer in all his tradition struggle battles, together with college vouchers, McGirt v. Oklahoma, COVID-19 vaccines, and the alarming frequency of dying row executions, which Drummond can also be investigating. 

We’re not used to attorneys basic who do what they promise, and but in the house of lower than a month, it seems like Drummond is holding individuals to account. As Stitt and Walters transfer quick to privatize Oklahoma’s public faculties by inflicting them to fail, we want somebody watching every thing they do. As Drummond’s flurry of early exercise exhibits, we at all times did.