Sarah Huckabee Sanders spent $19,000 on a lectern she won’t use, then blamed the media

Anti-LGBTQ+ Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) acknowledged that she spent $19,000 in state taxpayer funds on a lectern that she’s not even publicly using. She paid for it using a state credit card, and the Republican Party of Arkansas eventually reimbursed the state for the lectern, but only after a local blogger revealed the uncommonly expensive purchase.

While speaking to the press on Tuesday, Sanders explained that she would not be using the lectern, even though it was purchased specifically for her public statements as governor, because the media would “talk about nothing else” if she used it for its intended purpose.

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“If Boebert was a governor this is what it would look like.”

“I figure if you do [use the lectern], you [the media] would talk about nothing else than the important actions that we’re actually taking … which, unfortunately, is not surprising, that while we are focused on things that actually impact our state and impact Arkansans, the media wants to spend all of their time on things that frankly don’t,” she chastised reporters on Tuesday.

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Sanders’ office purchased the custom blue and wood-paneled lectern from Beckett Events LLC in June for $19,029.25, “significantly higher than prices listed online for other lecterns,” KTHV reported. On Tuesday, she explained several features that may have added to its cost.

“In terms of specific features, the height of the podium is specific,” she said. “I don’t know if you noticed but women are traditionally shorter than our male counterparts. And so that makes a little bit of a difference…. It also incorporates sound components that make it easier to plug in for multiple media outlets at one time to get the best sound quality, I guess, possible, to relay back to TV and the purposes of that nature.”

In September, local blogger Matt Campbell revealed that Sanders’ office had made the expensive purchase. Sanders’ executive assistant and office manager Laura Hamilton has since been accused of altering an invoice for its purchase, writing an undated note that the item was “to be reimbursed.” Hamilton hasn’t revealed who allegedly told her to add the note.

Sanders’ office has also been accused of illegally withholding and redacting documents associated with its purchase. She has claimed that she purchased it using taxpayer funds as an “accounting error” and said that questions around its purchase are “nothing more than a manufactured controversy.” However, state Sen. Jimmy Hickey (R) has ordered a legislative audit to “get all the facts.”

Although the Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the purchase, “A check from the party was not written until September, three months after it was purchased,” the aforementioned news outlet reported.

In March, Sanders signed a law prohibiting trans students from using bathrooms that match their gender identity.

In February, she signed a bill reclassifying drag performances as adult-oriented entertainment. In March, she signed a “Don’t Say Gay” law, banning classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation before fifth grade, as well as another bill allowing anyone who received gender-affirming care as a minor to sue their doctor up to 15 years after they turn 18.

In June, a federal judge struck down the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which the legislature passed before Sanders became governor.