Montana's attorney general faces a hearing on 41 counts of professional misconduct

Source: Associated Press

Montana’s attorney general faces a hearing on 41 counts of professional misconduct

By AMY BETH HANSON
Updated 1:21 PM EDT, October 9, 2024

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A succession of controversies marks Republican Austin Knudsen’s nearly four years as Montana attorney general.

His office sided with a man who made an armed threat over a pandemic mask mandate and was accused of pressuring a Helena hospital over its refusal to administer a parasite drug to a COVID-19 patient. He tried to block three constitutional initiatives from the November ballot, recruited a token opponent for the June primary so he could raise more money, and got sued after forcing the head of the Montana Highway Patrol to resign.

Knudsen is facing a hearing Wednesday that could bring a reckoning in yet another dispute: allegations of professional misconduct over his aggressive defense of a law that allows Montana’s Republican governor to directly fill judicial vacancies. That law was part of a nationwide GOP effort to forge a more conservative judiciary.

A judicial disciplinary office concluded in 2023 that Knudsen’s office tried to evade the state Supreme Court’s authority by rejecting the validity of court orders.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/montana-attorney-general-professional-misconduct-51f0b75080f7defa9eba4b3a7837c53d