Former Secretary of State Wayne Williams will be represented by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office at an ethics hearing next month.

But how the call was made to provide state-paid legal counsel is a dispute between the Secretary of State’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.

Williams faces an April 22 hearing with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission stemming from a complaint, filed by attorney Tyler Boschert last October, alleging that Williams used state funds to pay for personal clothing between 2015 and 2017, and bar association dues and continuing legal education credits in 2016 and 2018.

However, the commission, by rule, cannot look at anything other than the 2018 dues and credits because the statute of limitations prohibits review of anything older than a year before the complaint is filed. 

The complaint was filed while Williams was still the secretary of state. But once he was out of office, it appeared he was no longer entitled to representation by the Attorney General’s Office unless approved by his successor, Jena Griswold. 

There was no dispute that, until recently, Williams was on his own when it came to his legal representation. According to emails provided to Colorado Politics, Skip Spear, a senior assistant attorney general with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, made it clear that the Attorney General’s Office would not represent Williams on the ethics complaint, citing a change in policy made by the Secretary of State’s Office.

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Spear sent an email on Jan. 31 to Suzanne Staiert, the former deputy secretary of state who represented Williams up to the point that the Attorney General’s Office took on the case.

“First, it appears that Mr. Williams’ case has proceeded through the Independent Ethics Commission process to a significant extent,” Spear wrote. “As an attorney, I’m sure you understand the difficulties of entering into the representation of a client after their case has proceeded this far.

“Second, Mr. Williams acting as a private attorney while in the position of an elected official may not be consistent with the expectations of the current secretary of state. If that is the case, you would be asking the attorney general to take a position contrary to that of a current elected official.”

Staiert replied that same day that the standard policy of the secretary of state had been to represent the previously elected official. 

“Refusing to defend him after he leaves office is bad policy and unjust,” Staiert wrote. “I have practiced government law for 25 years and I have never heard of a government refusing to defend someone for an action that was in the scope of their employment just because they are no longer employed.”

Colorado Politics reported on Feb. 11 that the Secretary of State’s Office had decided not to pay for the continuing legal expenses tied to Williams’ complaint.

But on Tuesday, Serena Woods, a spokesperson for the office, denied that there had been any change in policy around whether the secretary of state could be an attorney whose bar association dues would be covered by the office, or that the secretary of state had denied Williams legal representation from the attorney general. She also said Spears does not speak for the Secretary of State’s Office.

It’s more unusual for a state official who was acting in their official capacity to not be represented before the ethics commission by the attorney general’s staff. The staff represented former Secretary of State Scott Gessler on a 2012 ethics complaint that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, including a period of nearly four years after he left office.

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Williams told Colorado Politics on Tuesday that he is grateful that the Attorney General’s Office and the secretary of state have taken the step to authorize legal representation for the ethics complaint. 

Editor’s note:  A previous version of the story stated that the Attorney General’s Office is representing former Gov. John Hickenlooper on two ethics complaints. The Attorney General’s office said they are not paying for outside counsel for the former governor nor representing him on the complaints.