Hickenlooper defies subpoena last Monday; appears on day 2 following threat of contempt

Former Governor John Hickenlooper violated the State’s ethics law, Amendment 41, when he accepted travel and other expenses in two cases in 2018, according the State’s Independent Ethics Commission.

Hickenlooper is a candidate for the United State Senate Democratic primary on June 30. He will face former Democratic Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff of Denver. The winner moves on to challenge Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, Yuma.

Hickenlooper defied a subpoena issued by the ethics commission on Monday, but which was later enforced by a Denver District Court judge. The former governor missed the first day of the hearing, citing concerns about the use of a “virtual” hearing, held on the Webex platform, which he said would violate his due process rights.

But after the commission voted on June 4 to hold him in contempt for ignoring the subpoena, he showed up the following day, to be questioned by Suzanne Staiert, a former deputy secretary of State who is now the executive director or the Public Trust Institute.

Staiert is running for the Colorado Senate in Centennial and is currently facing a campaign finance complaint for failing to disclose how much she was paid by PTI and other sources in 2019.

PTI was formed in October 2018, two days before its founder, former Republican Speaker of the House Frank McNulty, filed the first of two complaints against Hickenlooper. The complaints stem from an open records request submitted to the Governor’s office in March 2018 by America Rising PAC, an organization that conduct opposition research on behalf of Republicans.

There were six trips in 2018 that Hickenlooper took that alleged he accepted illegal gifts, mostly for flying on private aircraft.

The two violations:

March 2018, a trip to Connecticut for the commission of the USS Colorado. Hickenlooper flew on a private plane owned by MDC Holdings and attended two VIP dinners hosted by MDC, a Denver-based home developer. The commission ruled 4-1 that the trip and dinners were a violation of the State’s gift limit of $59. They relied in part on testimony by Republican State Senator Bob Gardner, Colorado Springs, who also attended the commissioning, and who flew on a commercial flight and was not invited to the MDC dinners.

The second violation, which earned a 5-0 vote, was for a June 2018 trip to Turin, Italy for the Bilderberg Meeting, an annual conference that brings together leaders from Europe and North America. Hickenlooper was invited as a “person of interest” and not in his capacity as Governor.

He paid for his own flight and another $1,500 to the Bilderberg sponsors to cover the costs of the conference, but the commission determined that it was probably not sufficient to cover four days of hotel stays, meals, security, ground transportation and other incidentals provided by one of the sponsors, Fiat Chrysler. Amendment 41 does not allow elected officials to accept corporate gifts. Hickenlooper’s lawyer, Mark Grueskin, Denver, argued that the Governor could not be expected to pay for something for which he had not been billed and that other participants did not pay for those expenses either.

Hickenlooper was cleared of ethics charges on four other trips: two on a private aircraft owned by his chief of staff, Pat Meyers, and two others on planes owned by personal friends that were for special occasions.

The commission this week will begin looking at the issue of penalties. One is sanctions for refusing to appear for the June 4 hearing, in defiance of a court order. The second, fines for the violations.

Those fines are minimal: double the cost of the gift.

Political observers from both parties have said that Hickenlooper’s decision to defy the subpoena was more politically damaging than the ethics violations themselves.