Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office urged a judge on Thursday not to require him to sit for a deposition in his lawsuit against Jackson County, arguing county attorneys want information that “has nothing to do with the case.”

Jason Lewis, general counsel for the Attorney General’s Office, urged Clay County Circuit Judge Karen Krauser to reconsider her decision to allow Bailey to be questioned under oath about his conversation with a Jackson County official. 

Bailey is suing the county over its property assessment process.

Given the Attorney General’s Office’s caseload, Lewis said, requiring Bailey to sit for a deposition could set a troubling precedent.

“The Attorney General’s Office has profound institutional interest that a sitting statewide official cannot be deposed in every case,” Lewis said. 

Judge orders Missouri AG Andrew Bailey to sit for deposition over possible ethics breach

Krauser’s order, issued two weeks ago, came in response to a motion for sanctions Jackson County attorneys filed because of Bailey and a deputy’s conversations with Jackson County Legislator Sean Smith, which appear to have violated the rules of professional conduct set out by the Missouri Supreme Court. 

Under those rules, lawyers are not allowed to communicate with an opposing party in a lawsuit without the consent of that person’s lawyer. While Bailey doesn’t dispute the meetings occurred, he argues they were inconsequential and that the county has to exhaust other options for seeking information about the meetings before questioning a sitting attorney general. 

An outside attorney hired by Smith, also asking Krauser to overturn the order, likened Jackson County attorneys’ efforts to question Bailey over the meeting to an “atomic bomb” compared with less drastic ways to handle the issue. 

“This whole thing really appears to be a distraction from the merits of the case,” said the attorney, Brandon Boulware.

But Ryan Taylor, an attorney for Jackson County, argued the state had not been forthcoming on the issue. He quoted President Harry Truman, who “once said, ‘The buck stops here.’”

“What he meant by that was that anything that happens with his administration, he’s responsible for it,” Taylor said. 

He asked Krauser to stand by her order and allow the deposition to take place.

“If it was an innocent statement, then why can’t (he) just sit down and tell us about it?” Taylor said. 

The dispute stems from Bailey’s lawsuit against Jackson County over its property assessment process. Bailey claims the county’s process was flawed, resulting in an average 30% increase in value across hundreds of thousands of properties. 

Attorneys have argued Bailey waited too long to file the case since tax bills have already been paid and money distributed. 

Bailey’s office has maintained the attorney general did nothing wrong in meeting with Smith and described it as a “brief, casual meeting between two elected officials and their campaign staffs unrelated to the lawsuit.” A filing from Bailey’s office says “at most, a passing remark was made about the lawsuit.”

Lewis, echoing arguments in the state’s court filings, said the county should question other individuals present for the meeting before being granted access to Bailey because of a rule against depositions of top-level agency staff.

But time is short with the trial expected to wrap up in early August. 

“This is about the actions of the attorney general himself, people he was in a room with, people he talked to and what he heard,” Krauser said during Thursday’s hearing. 

Attorneys also argued over whether Jackson County’s counsel represents Smith as an individual or only the Jackson County Legislature as a body. Krauser said she believed Smith to be represented by the county’s attorneys.

Forcing a sitting attorney general to answer questions under oath is highly unusual, but Krauser said in her order that “the Missouri Attorney General’s Office is not exempt from the requirements of the state ethical rules.”

Krauser did not say during the hearing how she would rule on the request to overturn the order granting the deposition. She said she would issue a written decision Friday.