Flint water crisis legal costs dispute continues between Michigan AG, Republican House
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Friday responded to accusations that her office was stonewalling the Republican-controlled Michigan House Oversight Committee this week, saying the committee's member statements were inaccurate and misinformed.
Nessel in a letter highlighted the fact that she has been in constant communication with the committee and its chair, Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Township), and that she agreed to provide the full scope of the litigation expenses from her term and her predecessor's. Although DeBoyer and his fellow Republicans threw barbs this week after only getting half of what was requested, Nessel said she needs additional time to produce the remaining documents.
Those documents that were handed over were also shared with members of the Michigan Capitol press corps, which was another area of frustration for House Republicans.
'By June 17, as committed, we will, likewise, share the second production with the chair and our Capitol press corps to ensure transparency,' Nessel said. 'It has always been my belief that these documents and the evidence belong to the people, as allowed for under Michigan law, and I have committed to nothing less since the close of my department's prosecutions.'
Nessel Letter 5.23.25
The request revolves around the Flint water criminal prosecution that resulted in zero convictions after the cases were dismissed, but not before the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution team violated the due process rights of the defendants by indicting them using a one-man grand jury.
The move disallowed several members of former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's administration – who were accused of negligence that fueled a state-created danger – from having a preliminary examination that would have given them a chance to poke holes in the state's probable cause arguments. Snyder's associates were charged with felonies, but Snyder was only charged with a misdemeanor before all charges were dismissed.
The prosecution team was led by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and former Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, while Nessel spearheaded the civil litigation side of the Flint crisis, which resulted in a mammoth settlement.
When Republicans took back control of the Michigan House of Representatives this year, Rep. Angela Rigas (R-Caledonia), chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, requested contracts, invoices, itemized lists of billable hours, memoranda of understanding with third-party entities and other financial items related to the investigation and prosecution that occurred under Nessel's regime.
Her predecessor, former Attorney General Bill Schuette, led an investigation and began a prosecution of his own by employing a special counsel, attorney Todd Flood. That investigation remained active when Nessel became attorney general in 2018, but Nessel soon after dissolved Schuette's case and began anew with her own investigation.
Although Rigas had asked pretty pointedly for documents related to Nessel's time as attorney general, the department said it would endeavor to show the whole scope of the cost of the prosecution, which included Schuette's tenure.
Those documents would take time to process and deliver to Rigas' subcommittee, Nessel said from the outset, and requested an extension of the initial March 25 deadline. That deadline was Tuesday. Nessel delivered a document package on a secured hard drive on Wednesday.
But the documents delivered only covered Schuette's term, and Nessel stated that the remaining document haul would take about another four weeks to produce.
The continued back and forth angered Rigas, who called Nessel's office onto the carpet.
On Thursday evening, DeBoyer sent Nessel's office a letter demanding production of the remaining documents.
'Most, if not all, of those records appear to be Verizon cell phone bills related to Todd Flood,' DeBoyer wrote. 'Your office failed to produce any documents from your own tenure as attorney general. It is apparent that you and your office willfully refused to provide documentation relative to your own tenure in office and instead spent your time digging up irrelevant documents from a prior administration.'
DeBoyer demanded that the documents be presented no later than noon on May 30, and delivered electronically – and presumably not on a password protected drive.
DeBoyer Letter 5-22-25
In response, Nessel said she was transparent with Rigas and agreed to deliver documentation from 2016 [when Schuette was still in office] to the close of the Nessel era prosecution in 2023.
'As requested, this includes documents from the prior administration, which began the prosecutions,' Nessel wrote in a letter to DeBoyer issued Friday. 'I was also clear that this involved thousands of pages of documents, which would take some time to produce and require redirection of staff efforts to fulfill.'
Nessel also said she provided Rigas and DeBoyer with a link to a publicly available website including all costs incurred by the state in the matter. She provided that link again in her letter to DeBoyer.
'If you were not provided this information previously, you have it now,' Nessel wrote. 'Also, despite your and Rep. Rigas' claims, yesterday's production included 28 megabytes of documents which satisfies the requested first and third categories through 2019, with the commitment to provide 2019-2023 by June 17.'
Nessel did not appear to budge from her position that the documents would be delivered by June 17, seemingly bucking DeBoyer's new request for production by May 30.
Nessel said that there were no settlements or cost recoveries related to the prosecutions, so there was nothing to provide the committee or Rigas' subcommittee in that regard.
The attorney general added that the documents her office turned over were not mere cell phone bills.
'In total, my department delivered over 450 documents, separated into subfolders under the headings, 'invoices,' and 'contracts,' to help navigate this extensive production,' Nessel wrote. 'Billable hours for outside counsel, expense forms, associated costs and more are all itemized throughout those documents. If you had reviewed the entire production, you would see it was far more extensive than simply Verizon cell phone bills from one attorney.'
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