Suit faults Rutledge interventions

AG pursuing political ends, not representing state, group’s filing claims

LITTLE ROCK -- Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has no legal justification, beyond her own political interests, to intervene in out-of-state lawsuits involving the presidential election and the National Rifle Association, a group of detractors who are suing her claim in recent filings.

Members of the eight-member taxpayer group, who have banded together to sue Rutledge, a Republican contender for governor, accuse her of using her office to further her own interests, including spending state funds to promote her candidacy.

Rutledge's lawyers say the lawsuit is composed of baseless claims made by political opponents and everything she has done since taking office in 2015 has been to promote the interests of Arkansas and its residents. Her critics just don't like the way she's gone about it, her lawyers assert, calling on the presiding judge, Alice Gray, to dismiss the 6-week-old suit.

In the response, filed Wednesday, the group's attorney Richard Mays states Rutledge's lawyers ignore evidence and the law to argue the suit should be thrown out.

Mays says Rutledge's decision to join Arkansas to lawsuits before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the results of the Pennsylvania presidential election and an effort to delay the Electoral College vote are clearly outside the scope of her duties.

Those suits are both missing something Arkansas law requires before the attorney general can get involved -- a state officer, board or commission to be directly involved, Mays' response states.

All Rutledge was doing in those lawsuits -- both of which were rejected by the high court -- was representing herself when she joined her Republican peers in the litigation, according to the pleading.

"There is no conceivable 'interest of the State of Arkansas' to be found in these actions," the filing states. "To the contrary, they were taken solely for the purpose, not of protecting against election fraud, but of interfering with the Nation's election processes and perpetuating what, if successful, would have been the biggest election fraud in history. To understate it, not only were such actions not in the interest of the state, they were contrary to the interest of the state and the United States of America as well, and were a breach of Rutledge's solemn oath of office to 'support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas.'"

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