SEATTLE — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson asked two state courts on Thursday to force initiative sponsor Tim Eyman to turn over business, banking and tax records as part of a campaign-finance practice investigation.
Ferguson said he filed petitions in Snohomish and Thurston County Superior Courts asking them to enforce subpoenas from the case, seeking documents pertaining to Eyman; his company; and the for-profit company Citizen Solutions.
“Tim Eyman and Citizen Solutions refuse to cooperate with my investigation,” Ferguson said in a news release.
Eyman has turned over a “smattering” of records, heavily redacted, Ferguson said. The failure to turn over the documents has “essentially stalled” investigating, he said.
Eyman’s attorney, Mark Lamb, said he invited Ferguson to examine Eyman’s tax returns at his office, but he doesn’t want to turn them over for fear they might become public.
“The State has been investigating my clients for four years and has filed no charges,” Lamb said in a written statement.
Eyman has proposed numerous tax-limiting initiatives. Last fall, after a three-year investigation, the state Public Disclosure Commission said it discovered potential violations of campaign-finance law and forwarded the information to the attorney general.
The findings included allegations of using $170,000 in committee contributions for living expenses; that his committees did not accurately report contributions and expenditures; and that about half of $623,000 in payments from one of his committees to Citizen Solutions was passed along to his company.
