Rep. Goodwin Asks DPS to Provide Public Briefing in Pierre Wednesday on Ravnsborg Crash Investigation

For lawmakers struggling to get through the massive Ravnsborg investigation file, the Department of Public Safety, whose Secretary Craig Price has said the evidence in that investigation supported charging the Attorney General with second-degree manslaughter, will offer a public briefing on the investigation on Wednesday:

At the request of legislators, the South Dakota Department of Public Safety will conduct a public briefing for legislators on Wednesday, April 6, 2022 in regards to the crash where South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg was driving a vehicle that struck and killed the late Joseph Boever on Sept. 12, 2020 in Hyde County. In anticipation of that briefing, DPS has released information that supplements what has been publicly reported on by the media from its investigative report.

The DPS report can be found here: https://dps.sd.gov/application/files/7516/4908/2205/SDHP_Report_Redacted.pdf.

Wednesday’s briefing starts at 1 p.m. (CDT) in the Capitol Lake Visitors Center. Lawmakers also can attend via Zoom which will be provided at a later time [Department of Public Safety, press release, 2022.04.04].

The press release says “legislators” asked for this briefing; Hunter Dunteman reports that Rep. Tim Goodwin (R-30/Sheridan Lake) asked for it, because Goodwin thinks the members of his own party on the House impeachment committee who recommended Ravnsborg not be impeached are covering something up:

“How can you be the number one law enforcement officer in the state and then lie to law enforcement officers? Right there he should be impeached,” Goodwin said, adding that he, personally, had asked Ravnsborg to resign. “A cover-up is what this is. It’s as bad as the crime.”

He also pointed to the committee’s interpretation of what it means to be “in office.”

“Then they used the ‘in office’ clause. What the hell is the ‘in office’ clause?” Goodwin asked. “I don’t know what they mean by that, but it seems pretty weak.”

In the majority report, the House Select Committee opined that because Ravnsborg was returning from a campaign event that was not directly a duty by virtue of the Office of the Attorney General, he did not commit any misdemeanors “in office” — a pivotal burden in impeachment proceedings.

“I understand he was undercharged, but after that, the cover-up is just unbelievable,” Goodwin said. “This is just wrong. It’s an embarrassment to the state” [Hunter Dunteman, “Calling Ravnsborg Impeachment Probe a ‘Cover-Up’, South Dakota Lawmaker Seeks Answers from State Officials,” Mitchell Republic, 2022.04.04].

The DPS report is 404 pages of documents from the South Dakota Highway Patrol. That’s still a lot of reading before tomorrow and before the April 12 meeting of the House of Representatives, which will consider whether or not to impeach Ravnsborg.