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SALT LAKE CITY – A two-year battle for transparency ended Wednesday with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes turning over his work calendar to the KSL Investigators. Now, we're working hard to show you what is – and isn't – in more than 9,000 pages of calendar invites sent to and from Utah's top law enforcer over five years.
At first glance, much of what's on Reyes' schedule from 2019-2023 is routine: meetings with lawmakers and policy experts, events tied to his priorities like fighting human trafficking and addressing the opioid crisis, and appointments focused on the state's legal flights against tech companies like TikTok.
Yet, Reyes' office fought to keep the public from seeing them for nearly two years on the taxpayers' dime.
At a news conference in St. George in November 2023, KSL asked Reyes whether he believes the public deserves to know what he is doing day to day. Reyes said, "I think the public deserves to know the results of what I'm doing day to day."
The calendar contained some surprises, like a scheduled January 2020 private breakfast with "General John Kelly" at a tech conference in Las Vegas, suggesting Reyes met with the former White House chief of staff for then-President Donald Trump.
KSL spotted just three meetings – all in 2019 – involving Tim Ballard, a close friend of Reyes and the former leader of Operation Underground Railroad, an anti-trafficking group.
Several women who worked or volunteered with the group have accused Ballard of sexual misconduct and harassment; Ballard has denied the allegations. Reyes announced last year he would not seek reelection as scrutiny of OUR and Reyes' involvement with Ballard and the group intensified.
Some events KSL anticipated to find in the calendar entries didn't appear to be there, including a 2020 speech Reyes gave at the Republican National Convention.
Other trips Reyes took that made headlines — his travel to Nevada after the 2020 election, where he alleged he saw "voting irregularities" and a 2022 World Cup junket were not among the entries KSL received.
Reyes' office withheld entries for appointments it deemed personal or subject to attorney-client privilege, terms KSL agreed to in the settlement which align with earlier decisions in KSL's favor handed down by the Utah State Records Committee and a judge.
The entries show a consistent pattern that appointments were sent to or from a personal Gmail account containing Reyes' name.
While he isn't the first elected official to use a private account for public business, the practice raises questions about transparency and security. His office didn't respond to questions Wednesday evening about the private email.
The legal battle for Reyes' work calendar had a chilling effect on the public's right to access other public officials' calendars. Utah's Legislature and Gov. Spencer Cox rushed to change the law earlier this year, making all calendars secret going forward.
KSL News Director Leona Wood called the move disappointing.
"I'm hopeful that the public will choose to wield their mighty influence, just as we have tried to wield ours, in order for lawmakers to understand the critical nature of the public knowing what they're doing," she said.
Attorney Tammy Frisby, who represented KSL in the records battle, noted that lawmakers could reverse their decision to crack down on the public's right to access officials' work calendars by passing a new law undoing the change. She emphasized that the current law does not stop any public or elected official from showing the public their work calendar voluntarily.
"Any elected official can choose to release their daily calendar to let the public know how they're doing the public's business and be transparent about the work they do for the people of Utah," said Frisby.
Newly elected Derek Brown, Utah's next Attorney General, said he would do just that during a televised debate ahead of the election.
The KSL Investigators will continue digging into these records and reporting what we find.
