AG issues cease-and-desist letter to nonprofit news outlet

HELENA — The Montana attorney general’s office issued a cease-and-desist letter to a state news outlet after it published a 381-page internal survey earlier this month about workplace culture and leadership at the Montana Highway Patrol, a division of the state Department of Justice overseen by Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

The letter to the Daily Montanan, part of the national organization States Newsroom, described the Montana Highway Patrol Organizational Climate Assessment as a “confidential document” and directed the news outlet to remove a copy of the survey from its website and edit an accompanying article to remove quotes attributed to the survey.

“The version of the Climate Assessment you published contains sensitive and private information in the form of confidential individual Montana Highway Patrol employee comments and employee identities that was illegitimately obtained without consent,” said the letter from DOJ general counsel Chad Vanisko, dated August 21. 

Vanisko later added that “failure to comply with these demands may result in legal action to protect the affected employees’ rights and seek appropriate legal remedies, including but not limited to injunctive relief.”

The Daily Montanan’s August 16 article, which highlighted employee feedback critical of how Knudsen and other officials have managed the highway patrol, remained posted and apparently unchanged as of Friday afternoon.

In a letter emailed to the department on Thursday, attorneys representing the news outlet called the cease-and-desist letter an apparent attempt “to silence and intimidate reporters” and said that all personally identifiable information in the survey was redacted.

“The Attorney General’s apparent desire to suppress unflattering commentary regarding his management of MHP does not justify legal threats that jeopardize the free press in Montana,” the letter stated, signed by Helena attorney Rylee Sommers-Flanagan. 

Sommers-Flanagan, director of the nonprofit firm Upper Seven Law, released the cease-and-desist letter and the Daily Montanan’s response in a Friday press release.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office on Friday declined to comment on the original publication of the survey or the Daily Montanan’s response to the cease-and-desist letter.

In its original reporting, the Daily Montanan highlighted quotes from members of the Montana Highway Patrol alleging micromanagement of the division by Knudsen, a Republican who is seeking re-election this year, and the Department of Justice generally.

“This organization is a sinking ship caused by the Attorney General micromanaging the MHP,” the outlet quoted one person as saying. Another comment stated that the attorney general and Department of Justice “has no clue how to run the agency.” 

The survey, taken in January and February, was conducted by the Connecticut-based Team Training Associates LLC and authored by the company’s president, Eric Murray. 

The copy of the survey on the Daily Montanan’s website includes black redactions that appear to obscure the names of individual MHP staff. Sommers-Flanagan said Friday that the Daily Montanan did not make the redactions but that the survey was “published as received.” The outlet has not specified how it obtained the survey. 

“The Daily Montanan was provided a copy of the survey by a source who believed it was important for the public to know, but who fears retaliation,” said the outlet’s editor, Darrell Ehrlick, in a Friday statement to Montana Free Press. “The Daily Montanan, like many journalism organizations, will protect that source.”

The introduction of the survey’s findings said that Murray “took liberty to exclude some remarks” from the final report “because they were deemed inappropriate or for personal identification purposes.” Other changes, the report said, “included removing date and time data that might identify respondents.”

Murray’s introduction also said that the materials in the report and survey were “for the purpose of organizational improvement initiatives” and that “any unauthorized use will be subject to penalties allowed by law.” The report, however, also recommended the department share the findings with “all participants for transparency.”

In the letter responding to the cease-and-desist, Sommers-Flanagan highlighted the Montana Constitution’s right to know provision and argued there was clear public interest in the survey’s findings.  

“The survey neither identifies nor discloses information contained in personnel records, and the Daily Montanan article contains no information sourced from any employee personnel record,” the letter said. “Rather, the survey outlines management issues and offers strategies to address these issues. The public has an obvious interest in MHP’s management problems and there is no privacy concern to weigh against that interest.”

Sommers-Flanagan said she has not received a response from the state about the firm’s Thursday letter.

Mara Silvers is a reporter for the Montana Free Press, a nonprofit newsroom, and can be reached at msilvers@montanafreepress.org.