Lease deal, criminal case not mentioned in latest batch of Stenehjem emails

Wayne Stenehjem (Photo provided by Office of Attorney General)

Emails released Wednesday show former Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem frequently used a private email for state business, but none of the messages related to ongoing criminal cases.

The Attorney General’s Office released another batch of Stenehjem’s emails in response to an open records request from the North Dakota Monitor and other media outlets.

Members of the media initially requested Stenehjem’s emails after cost overruns with a building project pursued by his administration were disclosed after Stenehjem’s death. The open records request revealed that Stenehjem’s executive assistant had ordered the deletion of his state email account immediately after he died in January 2022.

State officials initially thought the emails could not be recovered. However, in February the Bureau of Criminal Investigation discovered a cellphone extraction program had automatically copied and stored the contents of Stenehjem’s cellphone. In addition, the BCI requested Stenehjem’s personal laptop from his family in March.

Attorney General Drew Wrigley has said the cellphone data and laptop contents are being reviewed in the investigation of former Sen. Ray Holmberg, who is indicted on child sex tourism charges. Holmberg, who was a close associate of Stenehjem, left a voicemail for Stenehjem after investigators searched Holmberg’s home, a transcript of a court hearing shows.

Wrigley said his office is fulfilling open records requests after staff review messages for potential information relevant to the criminal investigation. 

About 95 emails made public Wednesday were recovered from Stenehjem’s private laptop. They are messages sent and received from Stenehjem’s AOL account that relate to state business. None of the emails mention Holmberg, according to a North Dakota Monitor review of the emails, which take up about 200 pages.

The batch of emails did not contain messages related to the building project, which is partially owned by Rep. Jason Dockter. The lawmaker is set to appear in court on Friday for a trial over a  misdemeanor charge connected to the business deal. There is one email exchange between Stenehjem and Dockter related to campaign finance reporting. Dockter was Stenehjem’s campaign treasurer.

Many emails are related to the state Republican Party, including Stenehjem’s announcement in December of 2021 that he did not plan to seek reelection.

Other emails included messages related to the Board of University and School Lands, which Stenehjem served on, and emails related to a hydrogen project that was under consideration by the North Dakota Industrial Commission, another board he served on. Some emails from attorneys involved in an oil and gas lawsuit are redacted under an exemption for attorney work product.

Wrigley has said that emails in a private account are still public records if they relate to state business.

About 2,700 pages of emails were released at the end of March, containing mostly routine messages.

Wrigley told the North Dakota Monitor on Wednesday that no emails have been withheld from release, but thousands more are under review. 

“There’s still a volume more to go through,” Wrigley said.

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