The Indiana governor’s office is fielding an “unusually high” number of requests for copies of emails from former Gov. Mike Pence’s private accounts, prompting the state to hire — at a projected cost of $100,000 — a law firm to tackle the effort to respond.

Five complaints have been lodged that the state has been slow to respond to the requests, which cite Indiana Access to Public Records Act).

“We are responding to each [public records] request in the order received. In the interest of time and to provide records as soon as reasonably possible, our office is providing records on a rolling basis as they are reviewed,” said Stephanie Wilson, press secretary for Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office. Since Holcomb took the gubernatorial post in January, his office has received 57 records requests. Of those, 36 sought records, including emails, from Pence’s administration, which lasted from 2013 through 2016. Four of the requests sought records from both the Pence and Holcomb administrations.

Many of Pence’s records include emails sent from his two personal AOL.com accounts, which he used regularly during his time as governor. One account was hit by hackers in 2016, which prompted him to obtain the second account.

Public officials can use personal email accounts for official business under Indiana law. Private account emails related to official business must be retained for accessibility through public access laws.

Pence, now the vice president, has been critical of Hillary Clinton for using a private email server for official correspondence when she was secretary of state. Her use of private email for such correspondence was an issue during the presidential campaign in 2016.

In Indiana, public complaints about a state agency’s response to records requests are typically filed with the Indiana Public Access Counselor’s office, which has received five complaints this year related to Pence’s gubernatorial administration. One complaint was filed after a law firm was hired by Holcomb’s office to handle the requests. Two complaints were filed by a reporter with The Associated Press.

In one instance, an Associated Press reporter complained about the slowness of filling requests. In response, Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt wrote that Holcomb’s office was handling 50 pending public records requests, “many related to former Governor Pence’s significantly voluminous emails.”

Those emails can’t be electronically searched, leaving the state to provide only hard copies in response to public access requests, Britt wrote in his July opinion for Associated Press reporter Brian Slodysko.

Britt applauded the governor’s effort to outsource some of the public records duties but added that “at some point, updates will need to be coupled with production.”

The state hired the McNeely Stephenson law firm of Shelbyville to take on the backlog of requests. Legal costs could be about $100,000 for the oneyear contract, which notes that the legal work is for an “unusually high” number of public records requests.

The law firm is charging what it calls a “government rate,” ranging from $325 for a senior partner’s per-hour work to $225 an hour for an associate’s work on the requests.

“I don’t have an issue with the governor based on from what I understand is the volume of requests, plus just the volume of records that kind of got dumped at Gov. Holcomb’s doorstep when Gov. Pence left,” said Steve Key, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association.

Holcomb’s office said it can withhold records deemed “advisory,” “deliberative” or “privileged.”

Under state statute, Indiana government offices can cite certain terms of confidentiality in releasing documents. But officials also have to cite reasons in withholding some information.
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