Missouri government should not be run like a plotline from “Mission: Impossible.”
That’s the theme of a lawsuit filed against Gov. Eric Greitens seeking to stop the governor and his staff from using an app that destroys text messages.
The lawsuit, filed in Cole County Circuit Court on Dec. 29, by Des Peres attorneys Ben Sansone and Mark Pedroli on behalf of the Sunshine Project, seeks an injunction to block the governor’s office from using Confide, an app that destroys text messages after they are sent. The suit also alleges a conspiracy to violate Sunshine Law and other state and local records retention laws. It seeks a jury trial and monetary damages.
“The use of automatic communication destroying software by elected officials and government employees is illegal and constitutes an ongoing conspiracy to violate the Missouri Sunshine law and Missouri State and Local Records law, not to mention a significant affront to the open government and democratic traditions of Missouri and the United States,” says the lawsuit. “An immediate injunction will not prejudice the governor or his staff in any way whatsoever. In that respect, this request for injunctive action is rare. The governor’s remedy is simple, as simple as it was for governors and staff members before them; to simply communicate through other advanced means of communications, including SMS or text messaging, emailing and/or one of the many forms of communication that do not self-immolate like a Mission Impossible directive.”
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The lawsuit comes on the heels of an announcement by Attorney General Josh Hawley to open his own investigation into the governor’s use of the text-destroying app. The Kansas City Star first disclosed in early December that the governor and key members of his staff had Confide on their personal phones. A spokesman for the governor has said the office has followed the law but offered no details about Greitens’ use of the app.
At first, Hawley said his office would have a conflict to investigate use of the app, but later he said he would investigate his fellow Republican.
Now that investigation is complicated by the lawsuit filed by Pedroli on behalf of Sansone and the Sunshine Project, a new association founded by Pedroli that intends to advocate for open records laws. Because of Hawley’s investigation, his office is authorizing Greitens to hire outside counsel to defend the new lawsuit.
The lawsuit was the result of the governor’s office failing to properly respond to Sansone’s request for details from the state about who was using the Confide app.
It’s not the first time Sansone and Pedroli have teamed up to fight for the public’s right to know. In September 2016, the two lawyers filed an open records lawsuit against the city of Des Peres in a dispute over a development project near their neighborhood. In that case, the attorney for the city, Kevin O’Keefe, refused to release a transcript from a court battle over a zoning issue related to a proposed new Starbucks. O’Keefe acknowledged that he had the transcript but wouldn’t release it. O’Keefe is the contracted city attorney for Des Peres. He is a partner with Curtis, Heinz, Garrett and O’Keefe, the law firm that represents many of the 89 cities in St. Louis County, as city attorneys, prosecutors and municipal judges.
The dispute led Sansone to run for the Des Peres Board of Aldermen, a race he won last April.
After I wrote about the dispute, the aldermen voted last year to release the transcript. The Sunshine lawsuit continues.
Now Pedroli and Sansone are fighting their battle over open records on two fronts.
Pedroli believes the attorney general should appoint an independent prosecutor in the case. Either way, he plans to press his lawsuit against the governor.
“Transparency is a fundamental prerequisite to all the other civil liberties,” Pedroli said. “Somebody has to hold the government responsible and today the Sunshine Project decided to step up. Government officials need to be reminded that they are servants of the people.”
