Live from Music Row, Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to explain the abuse of power by national organizations.
Leahy: The original all-star panelist. Crom Carmichael is in studio. Crom, you know, we report at The Star News Network, The Tennessee Star, and in all of our various states, we report about state offices like attorney general.
That’s a very important state office. And here in Tennessee, we are blessed by, I would say, the very best state attorney general in the country, Jonathan Skrmetti, appointed by the Supreme Court here.
I’ve been a critic of that process for separation of powers issues, but they hit a home run when they picked Jonathan Skrmetti as our attorney general. But there are 50 states in the union, Crom, and some of those attorneys general aren’t quite the conservative superstars that Jonathan Skrmetti is.
Carmichael: No, Michael, what you have is you have among state attorney generals, tend to fall into one of two camps, either the good guys or the truly bad guys. And this is a story in The Wall Street Journal. It’s an editorial board story.
So it’s not by a particular individual, but it’s about a particular attorney general from Montana whose name is Austin Knudsen, and he has written a letter to the National Organization of Attorney Generals, otherwise called NAAG.
Leahy: That’s an appropriate name.
Carmichael: It really is.
Leahy: That group has been dominated by the left-wing attorneys general who are kind of captives of the trial lawyers.
Carmichael: And what happens is that the left gains control of various institutions very quietly, and then once they have total control, then they start doing things that they shouldn’t do in this case. So I’m going to quote from a letter that Attorney General Austin Knudsen wrote to the national organization.
“There is no doubt in my mind now that NAG is an unreliable and improper financial steward and that Montana’s share of the money at NAAG needs to come home. Return the money in your accounts that belong to Montana within 90 days, or I will go to court and sue to ensure that the money is safely and legally brought back within the four corners of Montana law.”
And then what he does is he goes on to point out that the National Association of Attorney Generals has amassed $280 million in assets, which it’s not supposed to do. But what it does is it amasses all this money through dues collections, and then they just build up these funds, and then they invest the funds.
However, the people in leadership say it should be invested. And as Knudsen points out, last year, NAAG lost $37 million or more on a coterie of esoteric investments. And so they’re just poor stewards of the money, so they shouldn’t even have power over this money, to begin with.
But the fact that this attorney general and it would not surprise me at all if our Tennessee attorney general didn’t join along with the sentiment and then actually the action to demand Tennessee’s share of NAAG’s money back.
Leahy: I’m so glad that you brought this story up, Crom, because it illustrates one of the themes, the kinds of themes that we hit on and talks about at The Tennessee Star and all of our state sites. Because in some states, the attorneys general kind of combine in a very untoward way to advance left-wing policies and not fulfill the role they should.
Carmichael: Right. This is taking control of national organizations and then truly abusing that power.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Austin Knudsen” by Montana Department of Justice. Background Photo “National Association of Attorneys General” by National Association of Attorneys General.
