Prosecutors, chief of staff summoned to testify in Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg impeachment probe

Lawmakers probing the potential impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg want to hear from the man who was with him when he discovered the body of Joe Boever.

After the House Select Committee on Investigation emerged from a two-hour closed door meeting Monday at the South Dakota Capitol Building, a series of subpoenas were issued ordering more officials involved in the aftermath of the fatal crash in September 2020 to testify before the nine-member panel, including Ravnsborg's chief of staff Tim Bormann.

"This is what's left in our minds at this point in time," said House Speaker Spencer Gosch, the Glenham Republican chairing the special committee charged with determining if Ravnsborg's conduct related to the crash merits impeachment.

Bormann, who's been Ravnsborg's top staffer since the attorney general was first elected in 2018, was with his boss the morning of Sept. 13, 2020, when Boever's body was discovered — more than 10 hours after the crash was first reported to authorities.

Bormann had followed Ravnsborg back to Highmore that morning to assist Ravnsborg in returning a loaner vehicle he'd used to get home the night prior.

Bormann did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.

Aside from Bormann, the committee also issued subpoenas for South Dakota's Division of Criminal Investigation director David Natvig, as well as Hyde County Deputy State's Attorney Emily Sovell, who ultimately charged the attorney general with a trio of misdemeanor traffic violations stemming from the crash.

Sovell's determination of charges was aided by Beadle County State's Attorney Michael Moore, who will also be summoned to testify before the committee.

The subpoenas order all four to appear before the committee on Feb. 24.

The House Select Committee on Investigation also spent time during its executive session determining what, if anything, to do about a series of telemarketing calls its members began receiving last week that aimed to pressure them to impeach Ravnsborg.

It's unclear who was behind the calls, though the call center that conducted the telemarketing campaign insists they did include a disclosure statement. That prompted Ravnsborg last week to say his office would be investigating the origins of the call.

However, the committee opted instead to request a federal or out-of-state law enforcement agency to look into the origins of the calls and formally requested "that Ravnsborg recuse himself from any such investigation."

"We've asked the attorney general to find somebody else to investigate that, so it's not necessarily something we're doing right now," Gosch said. "We're going to kick it over to the professionals. They've got the resources to be able to investigate."

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Prosecutors, chief of staff summoned to testify in impeachment probe