Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
Oklahoma Watch | Paul Monies
The chief of staff for Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ used messaging app Signal to communicate and coordinate policy with groups opposed to environmental, social and governance standards, according to an open records lawsuit.
In a deposition taken in February, Chief of Staff Jordan Harvey said she used the app in late 2022 and early 2023. At the time, the newly elected treasurer was figuring out how to implement the Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act. The law directs the treasurer to create a list of prohibited financial firms for state or local vendors who had corporate policies perceived to be hostile to fossil fuels.
Harvey said she has Signal installed on a personal cell phone. She received briefing documents on Signal from organizations opposed to ESG efforts that she then forwarded to personal and work email addresses. That was before she was issued a state cell phone, Harvey said in the deposition. Selected portions of the deposition were filed as an exhibit in the lawsuit in March.
Signal allows any party in a conversation to set the messages to self-delete after a certain time period. The messaging app has been central to revelations in the past month that high-level members of the Trump administration used the app to plan and coordinate war efforts, with a reporter included in the chat.
“I set my communication not to delete,” Harvey said in the deposition about her personal use of Signal. “The other person or people on the thread have the same ability to set the deletion time period. And then all parties on that thread are subject to that.”
Harvey said the treasurer’s officer turned over the documents she received on Signal under an open records request. She said the office could not provide the related messages from Signal because they disappeared by the time the records request was made in July 2023.
Records already provided by the treasurer’s office show that Harvey sent an email to the governor’s office in May 2023 with documents attached referencing Net-Zero Asset Managers Alliance emissions goals and questions.
“These are from our friends in DC that came about 2 months ago to meet with Treasurer Russ and the Governor,” the email said. “They are a little more targeted questions.”
In the deposition, Harvey said that email referenced three groups active in the anti-ESG efforts across the country: State Financial Officers Foundation, Heritage Action for America and Consumers’ Research Inc.
That trio of anti-ESG groups are now opposing efforts by the plaintiff, Alabama-based FOIA Professional Services LLC, to have them produce their sides of the Signal messages to Harvey.
Attorneys for the State Financial Officers Foundation, Heritage Action for America and Consumers’ Research Inc. asked Oklahoma’s attorney general for help in quashing subpoenas for records. They argued the groups were engaging in protected political speech when they communicated with officials from the treasurer’s office and they were being dragged into a dispute where they are not covered by the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
“Plaintiff’s attempt to gain access to withheld documents from nongovernmental sources through these subpoenas is the definition of a backdoor attempt to evade the ORA prior to any court decision on applicable exemptions and privileges,” the attorney general’s office wrote in an April 8 court filing.
The treasurer’s office, through a spokeswoman, said it does not comment on active litigation.
It is unknown for whom FOIA Professional Services was working when it requested the records from the treasurer’s office in July 2023. The organization filed the open records lawsuit in Oklahoma County district court in October.
“Our clients range from small businesses and government contractors to law firms and Fortune 500 companies,” the company said on its website. “However, we are a fully confidential service. Our clients’ names are not available and their requests are made 100% anonymously.”
Approved Messaging Apps?
The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services said there’s no statewide list of approved apps for state devices. Those decisions are left to individual agencies, spokeswoman Christa Helfrey said last week.
“Policies and procedures are in place for all applicable agencies, including but not limited to CIO (chief information officer) standards and the Open Records Act,” Helfrey said. “Agencies can also create additional policies and procedures specific to that agency.”
The attorney general’s office said it reminds public agencies and employees that apart from a few exceptions, records regarding government business on personal devices are subject to the law. In response to media questions in late 2023, it advised against using third-party messaging apps.
“The Office of the Attorney General strongly discourages public officials from using third-party messaging applications when communicating about public business,” the statement said. “Electronic communications such as emails and text messages that concern public business are records under the Open Records Act. It does not matter whether an electronic communication is on a personal or public device. If the communication concerns public business and is not exempt from production or able to be kept confidential, then it must be produced on request.”
When an Oklahoma Watch reporter asked Gov. Kevin Stitt about using Signal last month, he claimed not to know much about the app and joked that he wasn’t tech-savvy. But Stitt said he sometimes used another messaging app, WhatsApp, to communicate with contacts in other countries.
“I do have WhatsApp, so if I’m traveling overseas, that seems to be the method over there,” Stitt said at a March 26 news conference at the Capitol. “I still get phone calls from some of the Asian folks we met when I was over there. That seems to be how they contact me. But that’s the only messaging app that I have on my personal phone. I’ve never Signaled; I don’t know what Signal is.”
Enforcement of the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act is on hold after a retiree, Don Keenan, challenged its constitutionality and what he called political interference in the state’s pension plans. Keenan is a retiree getting a pension from the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System. Trustees for the system took an exemption to the anti-ESG law in August 2023 so it wouldn’t have to divest up to $6 billion in investments with BlackRock Inc., one of the companies on Oklahoma’s restricted financial companies list.
Oklahoma County District Judge Sheila Stinson issued a permanent injunction in September, prohibiting enforcement of the law. The attorney general is appealing that order to the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Paul Monies has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2017 and covers state agencies and public health.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
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