The Iowa governor sued the Des Moines register on Friday against a newspaper’s public record request, asking the court to verify withholding of certain emails claiming she is in protection.
According to the complaint, the registered reporter submitted a record request to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office in February. In response, the Republican governor’s office provided 825-page related documents, withheld four emails, claiming that “they are intended to be secret, and that disclosure hampers the governor’s ability to receive candid and solid information in the future.”
According to a court application, lawyers followed up on behalf of the register last week, and the so-called enforcement privilege was not an exemption from Iowa’s Public Records Act, and even if the governor had sent or received an email. Attorney Susan P. Elgin called withholding “legally vulnerable” and asked him to make a record within a week.
Instead, Iowa Atty. General Brenna Byrd sued Friday, asking the court to intervene, as permitted by Iowa law, to force the halt of the pursuit of records. The Associated Press requested Elgin for comment Friday. Gannett Co., the register’s parent company, said in an email that it had not commented on the pending lawsuit.
In a statement, the governor’s office said it was unfortunate that public resources would be used to defend tax withholding of governor records.
“It is the public interest that the governor can receive honest advice from his closest advisor,” said spokesman Mason Mauro.
In 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court rejected Reynolds’ request that the court abandon a record-related lawsuit filed against her by the Iowa Freedom Information Council, a nonprofit focused on issues with the issue of the liberal bleeding Heartland Blog, the Iowa Capital Dispatch, and the open government. The organization and some of its reporters accused Reynolds of violating the state’s public records laws by ignoring record requests and not creating records in a timely manner.
The register is also named in a lawsuit filed by President Trump, Rep. Mariannett Miller Meek and former Iowa Sen. Brad Zaun, along with the newspaper’s parent company and their previous voters.
