HELENA — The Montana Legislature’s Legislative Audit Division has completed a report into Senate President Sen. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, stating they couldn’t find evidence to substantiate allegations of waste, fraud or abuse against him.
On Wednesday, the Audit Division delivered legislative leaders a six-page memo on their investigation into six separate allegations, related to Regier’s hiring and use of an attorney while serving as House speaker in 2023 and 2024.
Earlier this month, the Senate voted to refer an inquiry to the Audit Division. Sen. Shelley Vance, R-Belgrade, who made the motion, cited a March 5 story from the Montana Free Press, which raised questions about whether Regier had legal authority to hire an outside attorney and about the scope of that attorney’s contracts with the state.
While a 2023 bill that would have allowed the House speaker and Senate president to hire special counsel didn’t pass, the Audit Division memo said other state laws did give legal authority for Regier to spend money on an attorney. The memo said there wasn’t evidence that the attorney was paid for work other state staff should have been doing or received state funds for working on a private lawsuit involving Regier. It said Regier consistently relied on nonpartisan staff attorneys’ advice in handling these issues.
Senate leadership held a news conference Wednesday afternoon after the report was released, where Regier said the investigation had shown the claims against him were false.
“Everything went down to our nonpartisan attorneys there in Legislative Services, they drafted all the contracts, everything,” he told reporters. “I relied on them. It's all up and up.”
Regier was sharply critical of the initial Montana Free Press story Wednesday, saying it had featured inaccurate conclusions and “misleading allegations.”
“I’m calling on the Montana Free Press to immediately and publicly retract all of the wrong information and baseless innuendo that they published,” he said.
MTFP editor-in-chief John Adams said in a statement to MTN that they were standing by their reporting.
“Our March 5 report raised timely and legitimate questions about public spending, contracting procedures, and legislative accountability—questions that were also the subject of a formal Senate motion and review by the legislative auditor,” he said. “The auditor’s findings confirm the accuracy of our original reporting, which detailed the timeline, scope, and funding of the contracts in question and reflected the fact that those actions were the subject of public and legislative scrutiny. The story did not allege misconduct by any individual. It accurately reported on the public processes and policies involved.”
The Audit Division’s investigation into Regier followed an investigation earlier this year into his predecessor as Senate president, Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton. In that report, the division said they did substantiate accusations of waste and abuse against Ellsworth in his handling of a state contract, though he has consistently pushed back against those findings and denied any wrongdoing.
Regier said Wednesday that, in light of the questions that have come up about state contracts, he believed more could be done to improve transparency for the Legislature and the rest of state government.
“Given all the attention on contracts this session, I'm open to any suggestion on how to make that process better,” he said.
