Sarah Huckabee Sanders Now Facing Criminal Investigation Over Spending Scandal

A state auditor has finally released the long-awaited report on Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' purchase of a $19,000 lectern, and things are looking bad for the first term governor. The auditor has referred the matter over to prosecutors to conduct a criminal investigation, as the auditor believes that there are too many discrepancies with the purchase. Specifically, it is believed that the money wasn't actually for the podium, but was instead used as a cover to spend the money elsewhere, which is a form of embezzlement. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Well, folks, the investigation in the state of Arkansas by a group of state auditors into the $19,000 lectern that freshly minted governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders bought last year has officially come to a close. And the auditors concluded after their exhaustive investigation that this whole thing actually needs to be investigated by prosecutors. So they have now sent lectern gate to career prosecutors in Little Rock, Arkansas to criminally investigate Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her administration. This is massive. Now, here is something people may not fully understand about this story, and for those of you not familiar with it at all, uh, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was sworn in that at the beginning of last year, 2023, she immediately goes out and buys a $19,000 custom lectern to travel with her all over the state. Now, at the time, everybody in the state was like, well, hold up that that's way too expensive.

Something doesn't smell right here. And they were right about that, and that is what the auditors found. It is believed, although this will be determined after the criminal investigation, that the lectern was not actually $19,000, but that Huckabee Sanders administration may have cooked the books to make it seem like they spent $19,000 on this. But in reality, they may have spent the money on unauthorized travel. But that's another thing that Sarah Huckabee Sanders immediately did upon becoming governor, is she shielded her travel records from the state. So when you add all of that up together, yeah, certainly smells like something is rotten in Little Rock, Arkansas. But here is what the report found, uh, compiled, of course by Ron Philip Kowski over at Midas. Touch number one, the podium was paid for before it was delivered. It was applied to operating expenses, which does not include equipment purchases.

The state agency that monitors government purchases, purchases was never notified. The bill of lading was shredded by the governor's office, and there were three different invoices that all appeared to conflict with each other. And of course, the amount paid for the lectern was more than double the estimate that the company that made it originally gave Sarah Huckabee Sanders. So how in the hell did you end up paying double what the estimate was for this lectern and to make things even that much more suspicious? Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her entire administration refused to sit for conversations with the auditors, as did the company that produced the lectern. And I'm willing to bet that that fact alone

Is why this was referred for a criminal investigation. Now, it's important to remember it has been referred for a criminal investigation, not criminal charges. You know, there is a world of difference between the two. The prosecutors will now have to investigate it if they even choose to do that, because they could just say, no, we're not gonna look into it. It's over with. But if they choose to look into it and then decide to bring criminal charges, they would have to impanel a grand jury prior to that. So we won't get a resolution to this if they're gonna actually investigate it, possibly for at least a year down the road, maybe even longer.