UPDATE: Hearing over Confide app rescheduled for March 15
UPDATE 9:30 am: The hearing has been rescheduled for March 15.
ORIGINAL STORY: Lawyers for Gov. Eric Greitens are expected in court Friday for the lawsuit involving the governor’s office use of the Confide app.
The hearing comes a day after Attorney General Josh Hawley said the governor’s staff didn’t violate any record laws in regards to the app.
Hawley launched an inquiry into Greiten’s office after reports came out saying Greitens and some of his staff had Confide accounts. The app deletes messages and prevents recipients from saving, forwarding, printing or taking screenshots of messages. Five members of the governor’s office told the attorney general’s office they had used the app to discuss government-related matters, like scheduling meetings.
According to a release by press secretary Parker Briden:
“Today’s report by the Attorney General makes clear that the Governor’s Office follows state Sunshine and records retention laws. The Attorney General’s report confirms what the Office has said from the beginning: the Governor’s Office has never used Confide or any similar application to evade state records laws.
The report confirms that the Office has had in place exemplary training, policies, and practices on Sunshine law and records compliance from day one. The Attorney General praises the Office’s hiring of an experienced special counsel to advise on records retention and Sunshine matters – a first in any Missouri Governor’s Office. The report reiterates that the Office cooperated fully with the Attorney General’s inquiry from the very beginning, including making staff available for interviews and volunteering to provide hundreds of pages of documents showing the Office’s commitment to records retention and the Sunshine Law. The report commends and specifically highlights the Office’s adoption of a policy that goes beyond what the law requires, calling it the “best practice.”
“This thorough report recognizes that we have gone above and beyond what the law requires in the interest of transparency,” Briden said. “We look forward to working with the legislature to modernize the state records retention and Sunshine law to bring further clarity to these issues.”
The hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. in Cole County.
