PIERRE, S.D.: South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg on Thursday insisted he had done nothing wrong in using his position overseeing the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation to make inquiries about what out-of-state criminal investigators could find on his phone during the investigation of his 2020 fatal car crash.
The Republican attorney general is facing a House impeachment probe as lawmakers investigate his conduct surrounding the September 2020 crash in which he struck and killed a man walking near a rural highway.
North Dakota criminal investigators last month told lawmakers that Ravnsborg, while under investigation, had made inquiries with staff at the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation about the possibility of taking a polygraph test as well as what could be uncovered in a forensic exam of his phones.
Ravnsborg spoke to reporters for the first time Thursday since lawmakers began their review of the investigation and said his inquiries with the Division of Criminal Investigation, which had been recused from investigating the crash, were an appropriate use of his position.
I was just asking, inquiring factual information about how processes work and I did so on other occasions all the time,” he told The Associated Press.
Ravnsborg initially reported the crash as a collision with an animal and has maintained he did not realize he killed the man, 55-year-old Joseph Boever, until he returned to the scene the next day and discovered his body.
But the North Dakota investigators didn’t believe him, they told House lawmakers in January. The investigators testified that Ravnsborg was untruthful about whether he was scrolling through his cellphone minutes before the crash. They also explained they decided not to give Ravnsborg a polygraph test because they believed he was not a good candidate for it.
I was willing to take a lie detector test. I was willing to go to North Dakota,” Ravnsborg said when asked to respond to the investigators’ testimony. I took their testimony to basically say that they didn’t want me to because they knew I would tell the truth. So I think that speaks volumes.”
The attorney general has adamantly resisted efforts from his fellow Republican, Gov. Kristi Noem, to remove him from office. Noem would get to name his replacement if he is impeached or resigns.
He acknowledged that he had been making calls to the state Republican party’s delegates, who in June will decide the party’s nominee for attorney general, though he cast it as part of his regular order of business. Ravnsborg would face Republican Marty Jackley, his predecessor, at the state convention.
Ravnsborg declined to specifically comment on whether he is running for reelection and what he believed happened during the crash.
He said he would make a statement when the time is right, about what I believed happened with the accident.
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