ST. LOUIS – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey released a lengthy report detailing his successful effort to oust former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from office.
The ‘Kim Gardner Report,’ as Bailey calls it, is 62 pages long and does not mince words. It said that “Gardner’s knowing and willful dereliction of her duties” created a profound failure and the need to remove her from office as the St. Louis Circuit Attorney. Bailey released the report late Monday night.
The highlights of Bailey’s report included what Bailey terms Gardner’s ‘delay tactics,’ which he says “threatened to defeat the purpose of his writ” of quo warranto, which was the legal document used to remove her from office. Bailey’s report also said that the “Missouri statutes don’t protect the public against what he calls “usurpers who may seek public office again in the future.”
The report concludes that “Gardner’s pursuit of an advanced nursing degree while holding the office of the circuit attorney demonstrated a lack of accountability under the law.”
Finally, Bailey added that “Gardner failed to effectively manage staffing in her office and she failed to provide adequate training for her staff.”
The dispute between Bailey and Gardner went on for months before Gardner finally resigned back in May. Bailey contended that Gardner was not doing her job because she failed to prosecute violent crimes. However, Gardner argued that Bailey’s pursuit to oust her was purely political.
Bailey expressed that he published the report “to put into the public domain what went wrong here, how it happened and the systems [that] need to be put in place to prevent [this kind of situation] from ever happening in the future.”
Bailey says that the public has a right to know about what he calls the mistakes that Gardner made and how the Circuit Attorney’s office was stabilized after she resigned.
Gabe Gore is now the St. Louis Circuit Attorney. Governor Mike Parson appointed Gore after Gardner’s resignation.
We are reaching out to Gardner to try and get her response to the report. FOX 2 will update this story with more information as it becomes available.
