Hawaii Auditor Les Kondo and House committee investigating him appear headed to court
Oct. 16—State Auditor Les Kondo and the special House committee investigating him appear headed to court.
The House Investigative Committee has been holding hearings since Sept. 13 over Kondo's handling of two separate, critical audits of management of state lands by two separate agencies.
Kondo has repeatedly pushed back in testimony and in writing that the committee's investigation is improper and does not have legal access to internal Auditor's office "working papers."
On Tuesday, the committee issued new rounds of subpoenas and ordered Kondo to produce documents by 4 :30 p.m. Wednesday.
Kondo did not comply. Instead, Kondo filed a motion in Circuit Court to allow him time to obtain outside counsel or to quash a long list of subpoenas for documents and for current and former Auditor staff to appear before the committee and testify under oath—or to speak to committee members privately.
In his filing, Kondo repeated points he originally made to the House Investigative Committee in response to the committee's Sept. 29 subpoenas.
Kondo requested "sufficient time to secure counsel, " in his filing. "Furthermore, the disputed Subpoena Duces Tecum seeks to compel production of certain documents which are unrelated to the Committee's stated—and therefore legal—purpose and include 'working papers' of the Office of the Auditor, which are confidential under Section 23-9.5. Hawaii Revised Statutes. As a consequence, the issuing parties are demanding that the Office of the Auditor violate the law of its own creation as well as the State Ethics Code, which prohibits current and former employees from disclosing information that, by law or practice, is not available to the public."
Kondo formerly was the head of the state Ethics Commission.
State Rep. Della Au Belatti—also a lawyer like Kondo—chairs the state House Investigative Committee. The two have sparred repeatedly both in letters and during Kondo's initial three days of testimony over his office's handling of audits of the Agribusiness Development Corp. and the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Special Land and Development Fund.
Today, Belatti told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that "the Auditor's response to our subpoena of Sept. 29, 2021 is puzzling because what we're requesting of the Auditor are documents that are public documents. It's puzzling why he does not want to turn over those documents because they are connected to the SLDF and ADC audits. ... These documents are intended for the public."
Belatti said that Kondo's motion has not been assigned to a judge and no hearing date has been scheduled.
In the meantime, she said the House Investigative Committee "will continue to do our work."
Hearings are scheduled to resume on Wednesday with another round of testimony from Suzanne Case, chairwoman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources that oversees DLNR.
Starting Wednesday, Belatti said that all witnesses will be ordered to testify in person at the state Capitol—except for medical reasons—and will continue to be subpoenaed to testify under oath.
The hearings are scheduled to last through Oct. 28 followed by an initial draft of the committee's findings expected in November, followed by a completed report before the start of the next legislative session.
