The Senate's ethics committee sets the date for the hearing of Ellsworth

The Senate's Ethics Committee said goodbye to the former chamber president Jason Ellsworth on Friday and adopted rules for protests by the Hamilton Republican.

It is about whether Ellsworth should have disclosed his relationship with a business partner who benefited from a contract for the state government worth up to $ 170,100. From 2023, the Senate leader spent 15 minutes after the hearing on Friday in the record rules, of which he said that the Ethics Committee did not follow.

Ellsworth said he doubted that he could get a fair hearing. The hearing is currently planned for March 7. This is also the last day on which non -discontinued legal templates between the house and the Senate are transferred. In an e -mail at the beginning of this week, the Republican spokesman for the Senate said Kyle Schmuch, there were 200 to 300 Senate bills in the committee or in the committee.

“I will call sen. (Tom) McGillvray if this continues what it is not based on the constitution and due to the investigative powers,” said Ellsworth. “Sen. McGillvray, as a witness, he has already given the specified [Senate] Soil that I have to step back. So he decided. If this should be impartial, how could there be no greater form of distortion than to “resign”? ”

McGillvray is a member of the Ethics Committee and the majority leader of the Senate. It was a month since the Senate voted for an ethican hearing and the emotions have been cooked on the Senate several times since then.

The committee set general rules for the hearing next week, including conditions for lectures. Ellsworth's lawyer, Joan Mell, expressed concerns about the time of a witness exchange and exhibits. Due to the rule, the information would be traded at least 24 hours before the hearing, which Ellsworth's team said that they had too little time to prepare the answers.

Ellsworth does not have to say in his own name.

Special advisor Adam Duerk, who was hired by the Senate President Matt Government, R-Kalispell, said that it was a priority to supply Ellsworth with a fair hearing.

“It is the intention of the committee and those who provide this committee legal authority and guidance to ensure that Senator Ellsworth is awarded a proper procedure here,” said Duerk.

“For this purpose there [has] Communication of [the] The respondent's lawyer. Today there were comments from Sen. Ellsworth. These messages do not fall on deaf ears. “

The examination of Ellsworth concerns a contract for services that was granted to the business partner Bryce Eggleston at the end of December 2024. EllSworth had offered a job to check the Stevensville to check how state authorities limit several laws to limit the powers of Montana's judicial department. The legislative templates created by a selected Senate Committee, which met for several months in 2024 and was headed by Ellsworth, are currently being processed in the legislature.

Eggleston should receive 6,300 US dollars per invoice. The agreement increased the red flags with legislative employees, who initially received two contracts of more than 80,000 US dollars. An employee speculated that Ellsworth had divided the work into two contracts to avoid the 100,000 dollar threshold in which the work would have to be made available if no exceptions were made.

The administrative Ministry made the exception that was necessary to put the work in a contract and approved the agreement.

In January, concerns arose that Ellsworth abused his authority to have supposedly divided the contracts and at the same time did not disclose his relationship with Eggleston, who has dropped out the agreement since then.

Abuse of power is an offense. The Ministry of Justice checks the matter. The work of the Ethics Committee is limited to the alleged failure of a conflict of interest.