Group that sued over audit files new suit

Staff Writer jwingerter@oklahoman.com

One day after securing the release of a state audit into the Tar Creek Superfund site, a national watchdog group filed another lawsuit against the Oklahoma attorney general’s office.

Campaign for Accountability filed an open records lawsuit in Oklahoma County District Court seeking copies of communications between former Attorney General Scott Pruitt, along with Pruitt’s staff, and U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and Inhofe’s staff regarding the toxic northeast Oklahoma site.

“Now that the audit is out, we know that Scott Pruitt failed to prosecute allegations of serious misconduct,” said Daniel Stevens, the group’s executive director. “The new lawsuit seeks to find out why.”

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Mike Hunter said Tuesday that he had not received the latest lawsuit. On Monday, after releasing the Tar Creek audit, Hunter accused the Campaign for Accountability, which is based in Washington, of attempting to score political points.

“The politicization of this matter by an outof-state special interest group is unnecessary and unwarranted,” Hunter said.

Hunter released the audit before Oklahoma County District Court Judge Patricia Parrish ruled in a Campaign for Accountability lawsuit seeking to make it public. Parrish had previously ruled against Hunter’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The lawsuit filed Tuesday is also in Parrish’s court. Campaign for Accountability has also filed an open records lawsuit in federal court to compel the Environmental Protection Agency, now led by Pruitt, to hand over communications between EPA staffers that mention Tar Creek.

“We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to get to the bottom of what happened at Tar Creek,” Stevens said.