Montana’s attorney general faces professional misconduct complaint. Spokeswoman calls it meritless

— Montana’s ultra-conservative attorney general has been accused of professional misconduct on allegations his office tried to undermine the state’s Supreme Court in defending a law that allows the Republican governor to fill judicial vacancies without the input of a long-standing commission that vets candidates. The complaint called statements made by the attorney general’s office in court documents to be “contemptuous, undignified, discourteous, and/or disrespectful and constitute a knowing disobedience of an obligation under the rules of a tribunal.” It asks for the Supreme Court’s Commission on Practice to hold a hearing and make recommendations to the justices as to whether Knudsen should face discipline. The subpoena is valid and will be enforced.” After a hearing, the Supreme Court permanently quashed the subpoena in an opinion in which conservative Justice Jim Rice called Hansen’s response “obviously contemptuous.” Justice Laurie McKinnon said the legislative subpoena, “was blatantly designed to interfere with, if not malign, a coequal and independent branch of government,” violating the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. In a failed attempt to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the order to quash the subpoena, Knudsen’s office argued that: “Judicial self-dealing on this scale might be unprecedented in the Nation’s history.” His office argued the justices, in not recusing themselves from hearing the case, ensured “a result that bailed themselves out of an investigation prompted by their own inappropriate behavior,” and that denying a legislative subpoena allows the Montana Supreme Court “to conceal judicial branch misbehavior from the light of day.” Montana’s Supreme Court includes two justices initially appointed by a Democratic governor, one appointed by a Republican governor, one that was a Democratic officer-holder, and three others elected to the court in nonpartisan races.