Oklahoma Ethics Commission votes to pursue prosecution against State Supt. Walters
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — On Thursday, the Oklahoma Ethics Commission voted to pursue prosecution against State Superintendent Ryan Walters for alleged campaign violations.
There were several votes regarding Walters. The one that ended up pushing toward prosecution was about Walters allegedly withholding certain information about donors from his 2022 campaign committee.
The committee was titled Walters for State Superintendent 2022 Committee. The commission began to probe him a little over a year ago when he was told to pay over $7,000 surrounding filing late campaign reports.
A settlement was reached between the commission and Walters, but they started asking for information surrounding donors.
That led to this vote where they decided to pursue prosecution. According to the ethics rules, the prosecution would be civil in a district court.
The commission said they would send him a notice that Walters will have 20 days to respond to.
Another vote on Thursday resulted in the commission pushing ahead for a possible settlement agreement.
This came from the allegations surrounding the politically-charged posts, specifically alleging his use of state social media accounts and OSDE communications staff to share politically charged opinions, which may have violated state ethics laws.
The letter sent out a couple of months ago listed several examples of posts Walters made to his X (formerly Twitter) account.
The profile picture on his X account is his official state portrait, and the account’s name is “Superintendent Ryan Walters”—his official state title.
Another post the Ethics Commission flagged was an October post Walters made to his X account, in which he shared a video of himself giving an interview on Fox Business Network.
The commission voted to send ahead a settlement agreement. We were told by Executive Director Lee Ann Bruce Boon that they would send the press the settlement discussed, possibly this week.
"I know the Ethics Commission does an excellent job so I trust their findings and in what they do. We'll have to see what happens," said Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton.
When asked for a response to the Ethics Commission votes on Thursday, an OSDE spokeswoman responded with "no comment here."
UPDATE: The OSDE spokeswoman was asked again later Thursday for a statement and she replied, "No information has been provided to Superintendent Walters on any perceived issue regarding any new matter. Supt. Walters has always committed to following all guidelines and transparency in his political operations. Please refer all following ethics questions to the campaign."