{"id":571,"date":"2026-10-27T20:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=571"},"modified":"2026-10-27T20:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:56:13","slug":"they-represented-the-board-and-called-it-a-conflict-of-interest-north-dakota-lawmakers-voted-10-3-to-send-a-damning-audit-of-the-states-development-fund-126-loans-and-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=571","title":{"rendered":"THEY REPRESENTED THE BOARD AND CALLED IT A CONFLICT OF INTEREST | North Dakota lawmakers voted 10-3 to send a damning audit of the state\u2019s Development Fund \u2014 126 loans and investments worth more than $81 million, missing records, self-reported jobs nobody verified, and nearly $4 million to five organizations tied to the fund\u2019s own chair and vice chair \u2014 to Attorney General Drew Wrigley, who now says he won\u2019t investigate because his office is busy representing people from the fund\u2019s board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They represented the board and called it a conflict of interest. I know the sentence. It is the one a government says when it has built a little machine for handing out public money, audited the machine, found the machine\u2019s own leaders on both ends of some of the deals, sent the audit to the state\u2019s top lawyer \u2014 and then discovered that the state\u2019s top lawyer is already working for the people in the audit. Nobody is lying here. That is the part I need you to sit with. The conflict is real. The recusal is probably correct. And the result of everyone behaving correctly is that the one office lawmakers asked to look will not look, and the file goes back into the drawer with a nice ethical bow on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the record. KFYR\u2019s Hannah Neurohr reported Oct. 26, 2026 \u2014 Valley News Live carried it Oct. 27 \u2014 that Attorney General Drew Wrigley \u201cwill not pursue an investigation into the North Dakota Development Fund due to a conflict of interest,\u201d because his office \u201crepresents individuals who have been involved in the Development Fund Board of Directors.\u201d The Bismarck Tribune\u2019s Grant Coursey had reported Oct. 16 that Wrigley said as much in an Oct. 9 letter to the chair of the legislative audit committee: he was unable to even determine whether to investigate because of the conflict in his own office. The audit he can\u2019t look at is not a small one. The North Dakota Monitor\u2019s Jack Dura reported Sept. 22 that the 2019\u20132024 performance audit, required by a 2025 law, covered 126 loans and investments totaling more than $81 million; found missing or incomplete documentation, no procedures for tracking denials or appeals, inconsistent conflict-of-interest disclosures, and borrower-reported job numbers the fund never independently verified; and identified nearly $4 million in funding for five organizations with relationships to one or two board members. A separate financial audit found seven material weaknesses in internal controls. The Tribune reported Oct. 19 that those two members are the fund\u2019s chairman, Jim Albrecht, and vice chairman, Rob Lindberg, under a headline noting that the chair\u2019s firm got a $500,000 grant. The Legislative Audit and Fiscal Review Committee voted 10-3 to refer the audits to Wrigley and 9-4 to recommend that the 2027 Legislature repeal the fund and move its loans to the Bank of North Dakota. And per the Monitor, the Legislature had just approved $25 million for the fund out of an oil-tax-derived state fund last year, plus a $25 million Bank of North Dakota line of credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the defense, and there are several, each of them reasonable in isolation, which is how these things always survive. The fund, created in 1991, makes gap loans to businesses banks won\u2019t touch; Commerce Commissioner Chris Schilken told lawmakers it lets North Dakota compete for projects \u201cthat a traditional bank would not take on,\u201d and that \u201cwhile most fixes were underway before the audit began, others will come directly from these recommendations.\u201d Fund officials mostly agreed with the audit\u2019s recommendations. State Auditor Josh Gallion, a Republican, called it only \u201cprobably a little bit worse than on average.\u201d Rep. Austen Schauer, voting no on the referral, said, \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any clear evidence that there\u2019s a potential crime,\u201d and worried about people \u201cgetting dragged into the newspaper.\u201d The committee chair, Sen. Jeff Magrum, also a Republican, said: \u201cIf it is corruption or just incompetence, either way, we all can agree it\u2019s a disaster.\u201d And the attorney general, per the Monitor, was never required to investigate in the first place. Fine. Now look at the shape. The fund is, in the Monitor\u2019s words, \u201clegally structured as a nonprofit corporation but functions as a state-administered public economic development entity\u201d \u2014 private enough to keep its own board, public enough to be handed $25 million in state money and a $25 million line of credit, and public enough that people from its board end up represented by the attorney general\u2019s own office. That is not a bug in the recusal. That is the design. And the other half of the stage is no better: the Democrats, per KFYR, answered with a campaign line about \u201cwaste, fraud, and abuse from the Republican Lawmakers\u201d in an attorney general\u2019s race. Both parties are the help. One recuses. One fundraises. Neither one opens the ledger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deb says this is exactly how the church kitchen fund works: the treasurer audits the treasurer, the pastor\u2019s nephew is the lawyer, and the casserole money is \u201cself-reported.\u201d Buck has offered to investigate, citing no conflict of interest and no qualifications. Cricket asked who represents the casserole. I love them. They are seasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA conflict of interest\u201d is the alibi. The empty chair at the investigator\u2019s desk is the story. Sit with it until it confesses. When you are the one who borrowed from the state and can\u2019t show the paperwork, there is always somebody available to look \u2014 a collections office, an auditor, a letter with a deadline. When the people who handed out the state\u2019s money can\u2019t show the paperwork, the state\u2019s lawyer turns out to be their lawyer, the referral turns out to be optional, and the job count turns out to be whatever the borrower wrote down. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, in January, when the Legislature comes back: if the attorney general can\u2019t look, who will, and why is the answer always \u201cthe next committee\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n