Senate Ethics Committee probes close relationship between Ellsworth and associate

Yahoo

18-03-2025

Senator Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, watches a vote during the Senate Floor Session on Wednesday, February 12, 2025. (Nathaniel Bailey for the Daily Montanan)
A key witness in a Senate investigation skirted a subpoena to appear before the Senate Ethics Committee, and his video interview spurred criticism he was trying to avoid scrutiny.
Over three days this month, the committee heard testimony about a contract former Senate President Jason Ellsworth signed with his business associate and friend Bryce Eggleston, who declined to appear before the committee. The committee reviewed its findings Monday.
The testimony detailed the close relationship between the two — including Ellsworth's appearance at Eggleston's wedding — a relationship not disclosed during the procurement of the contract. Legislative Audit found the procurement process a waste of state resources and abuse of power, and its findings prompted the committee's investigation.
The committee is nearing the end of its weeks-long fact-finding mission into alleged ethical violations by Ellsworth, who has been participating in the Senate remotely. Neither Ellsworth nor Eggleston testified before the committee — Ellsworth on advice from his legal counsel, and Eggleston by pleading the Fifth and avoiding a subpoena to appear.
In response to the video statement by Eggleston, Sen. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, said he objected to a witness pleading the Fifth but providing a 'friendly' interview.
'He's able to lambast this committee as essentially a witch hunt without having to answer any questions from this committee. I found it highly one-sided and frankly, a bit upsetting,' said McGillvray, one of four members of the Senate Ethics Committee.
Ellsworth, a Hamilton Republican who served as Senate President from 2023-2024, sought to hire Eggleston for consulting work related to a series of judicial reform bills stemming from an interim committee Ellsworth formed and led. The committee aims to establish whether Ellsworth improperly procured the state contract without disclosing his relationship with Eggleston, of Agile Analytics.
The nature of the deal, initially submitted as two nearly two identical contracts but later combined into a single agreement, and Ellsworth's behind-the-scenes rush to get them approved prompted the Senate to call for an investigation by the Legislative auditor into waste, fraud and abuse concerns, and a subsequent Ethics Committee investigation. Attorneys for the committee drafted a report summarizing the investigation's timeline and condensing weeks of work and hours of witness testimony into 27 proposed findings.
Among the draft findings, the committee report lays out the close personal and professional relationship between Ellsworth and Eggleston, which stretches back two decades; the 'highly unusual' situation by which the contracts came together; and several statements indicating Ellsworth had not disclosed his relationship with Eggleston to legislative and administrative staff during the contracting process.
The committee made several suggestions to revise the draft report and will review the amended findings on Tuesday morning. Once the report is approved, it will be sent to the full Senate body for consideration.
A separate simultaneous criminal investigation is underway at the Department of Justice.
At the committee's Saturday meeting, special counsel for the committee Adam Duerk informed members that a subpoena had been served to Eggleston but that he opted to assert his Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate himself and declined to appear before the committee.
Instead, Duerk laid out that Eggleston and Ellsworth have a long documented history, including that Ellsworth employed Eggleston at one of his magazine subscription companies more than a decade ago.
A series of Facebook posts and photos, submitted as evidence with a signed declaration by Sen. Sue Vinton, R-Billings, cemented the personal relationship between the two.
Duerk told the committee that in 2018, Eggleston referred to Ellsworth as his 'friend, boss and mentor' in a post about Ellsworth's initial run for office. A photo from 2017 shows the two together at Eggleston's wedding, while another makes it appear the two were 'gym workout partners,' Duerk said.
Joan Mell, Ellsworth's attorney, shared a sworn video statement she conducted with Eggleston earlier in the week, which she said was done without knowledge that he would not appear.
The committee watched the hour-long video, in which Mell questioned Eggleston about his relationship with Ellsworth, and whether the former Senate president had any financial stake in Agile Analytics. Eggleston also stated that he thought the entire investigation appeared to be an attempt to publicly smear Ellsworth and himself.
'It seems like there's a concerted effort, politically motivated, to discredit Senator Ellsworth, and I am a casualty of that,' Eggleston said. 'I feel that my rights have been violated. I've been publicly lambasted.'
On March 7, 14 and 15, the Ethics Committee held hearings as part of its fact-finding mission, calling numerous witnesses involved in the contract process.
During Friday's hearing, the committee heard testimony from Misty Ann Giles, director of the Department of Administration, which oversees many procurement processes within state government; Ken Varns, an attorney with the Legislative Audit Division; Angus McIver, Legislative Auditor; Bowen Greenwood, Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court, and Todd Everts, the Legislative Code Commissioner.
Duerk questioned the witnesses and framed testimony as solidifying the allegations that Ellsworth made ethical missteps by failing to disclose his long-time relationship with Eggleston while contracting the work to someone with little-to-no experience in the political arena.
'In my expert opinion, in 20 years, I just believe it's best practice that if you do know a vendor — even if it's just a personal relationship, a friendship, anything like that, again, it doesn't necessarily kick you out — I just think it's best practice to disclose that just because you never want the appearance that you're trying to do something inappropriate, put your thumb on the scale for someone you may know outside of that business context,' Giles said during her testimony.
In later questioning by the committee, Giles said the situation would be 'much more problematic' had legislative and DOA staff not flagged the initial contracts, each for roughly $85,000, under the $100,000 ceiling that would have sent them to her department in the first place. Instead, staff worked to craft a better contract Giles said contained the state's usual terms and conditions.
The initial contracts were written to be paid for upfront, in full, and were not tied to any specific work products. The subsequent contract was to be billed and paid monthly.
'At least we were able to get it under our state terms, have the standard terminate-for-convenience language so that contract could be terminated,' Giles said. 'No funds went out the door, because we also changed those payment terms.'
The contract was cancelled before any payments were made.
Greenwood, who beat Ellsworth in a primary for the Clerk of Montana Supreme Court position in 2024, testified that Ellsworth had pitched Eggleston as a potential candidate for a communications job in the clerk's office in summer 2024, despite the job not existing.
'It wasn't my idea to begin with,' Greenwood said, but he had a few conversations with Ellsworth about the possibility.
'We were talking about the prospect of appropriating the money for this position, and we had just mentioned the salary, and he said he had somebody in mind, and it was, of course, Bryce Eggleston,' Greenwood told the committee.
Greenwood met with Eggleston, and earlier told the Daily Montanan he was 'not persuaded that it was a good idea,' and the prospective job never went any further.
In closing remarks, Mell emphasized the political nature of the investigation, taking aim at current Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, who initiated the investigation by the Legislative Auditor.
'I would just propose that you didn't need an investigation to know that Ellsworth knew Eggleston and trusted his work,' Mell said. 'In fact, that was the presenting complaint by President Regier. He went to the Legislative Auditor and precipitated a fraud, abuse and waste allegation, knowing of the relationship.'
'That's why it feels very politicized.'
The senate voted unanimously to convene the Ethics Committee in January.
Mell said that the work done by Ellsworth to follow up on a suite of legislation passed by the interim Judicial Oversight and Reform Committee was done on behalf of the Montana Legislature, to ensure judicial reform policies, a priority for Republicans, were enacted.
'This is an example where you had an extraordinary resource with an extraordinary senator who is willing to graciously afford you guys those resources to do good work,' Mell said. '… Ellsworth didn't want to fail. He didn't want to fail you, he didn't want to fail the public. And he was taking on an unprecedented, nearly insurmountable challenge to try to get the courts back in its own lane. Get it to respect the Legislature.'
Special Counsel Duerk focused his closing arguments on the principle of full disclosure at the heart of the state's ethics rules.
He reiterated many points from witness testimony that indicated the contracts Ellsworth procured and the manner they were crafted was 'an intentional evasion of any meaningful review and scrutiny.'
'I certainly can't tell you what to do as special counsel,' Duerk said. 'So I'd ask you to consider this question. Can anyone plausibly argue that there is no appearance of impropriety in the Agile contract after everything you've heard?'