Gov. Mike Dunleavy, never one to pass up a chance to send money Outside, is paying $350,000 for a report on why Adam Crum decided to order a $50 million investment in DigitalBridge before Crum quit his state job to run for governor.

This is a task that could have been performed quickly and for little cost by any one of thousands of state employees already on the state payroll, excluding the political hacks in Dunleavy’s orbit.

Instead, Dunleavy is paying hundreds of dollars an hour to have WilmerHale partners and WilmerHale associates tell him what Crum did.

Dunleavy was supposed to be supervising Crum, so he should have known what Crum was doing and why. There is no chance that Dunleavy was kept in the dark.

According to Crum, Dunleavy and the attorney general’s office knew exactly what he was doing.

“The whole claim that no one knew this was coming is a complete and utter lie,” Crum told the Anchorage Daily News last month.

When Dunleavy called legislative leaders to inform them of the $50 million investment this fall, he left the impression that he knew nothing about what Crum was up to, according to House Speaker Bryce Edgmon.

We know that WilmerHale will be able to charge the state 10 cents a page for photocopies of documents under its contract and that hotel accommodations are not to exceed $300 a night.

But we don’t know how much WilmerHale partners will get getting paid per hour under their no-bid contract.

Dunleavy and temporary Attorney General Stephen Cox claim that is a secret that must be kept hidden from Alaskans. The hourly rate for WilmerHale associates is also a state secret.

This information is only being kept secret to prevent Dunleavy and his crew from being exposed once again as wastrels, who claim to be conservative.

Dunleavy and Cox claim the secrecy is necessary to protect WilmerHale, a private firm. Everyone knows that the secrecy is to protect Dunleavy.

To prevent Alaskans from knowing how much the WilmerHale lawyers are charging per hour, the Dunleavy administration is keeping that information secret, claiming it is “confidential business information” or CBI.

Early on in the Dunleavy administration, the state did not claim that it could hide hourly rates from the public under the blanket excuse of “confidential business information.”

Numerous blog posts appeared in this space about the $600-an-hour deal that Dunleavy and former Attorney General Kevin Clarkson backed in an attempt to weaken state employee labor unions. I think that Dunleavy and his crew were embarrassed by the exposure.

There was also the contract with former Attorney General Craig Richards that paid Richards $12,000 a month for “statehood defense.”

The Department of Law had hired Richards in 2023 under a “small purchases” regulation that said the contract would cost no more than $50,000.

In 2023, the Dunleavy administration hit on the idea of asking law firms that wanted space at the state trough if they wanted to claim their hourly rates should be hidden from the public.

Dunleavy and former Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor invited law firms to claim their hourly rates were nobody’s business.

Now the Dunleavy administration is extending the courtesy of secrecy without even asking.

If this tactic is allowed to stand, all of the hourly rates in state contracts—which are public information—may be treated as state secrets, making it that much harder for the public to know what is going on.

To disguise this clumsy exercise in making things up as you go along, the attorney general’s office quotes specifics parts of the Constitution and state law, which is standard practice in the bloviation business.

But even a cursory examination of the legal references shows that the state’s words are empty.

The new attorney general claims that state law mandates secrecy and cites Article I, Section 1 of the Alaska Constituion, as well as the Alaska Uniform Trade Secrets Act and a few court cases as justification.

But Article 1, Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution says nothing about allowing recipients of state contracts to keep their hourly rates—which are spelled out in state contracts for good reason—a secret.

What Article 1, Section 1 of the Alaska Consitution does say is this: “This constitution is dedicated to the principles that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the rewards of their own industry; that all persons are equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities, and protection under the law; and that all persons have corresponding obligations to the people and to the State.”

The Alaska Uniform Trade Secrets Act, AS 45.50.910—AS 45.50.945, says nothing about allowing recipients of state contracts to tell the attorney general’s office to keep their hourly rates secret.

One task for the next governor is to declare that hourly rates in all state contracts are public information. Any private contractor that objects can decline the work.

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Dunleavy gives law firm $350,000 to review Crum's $50 million DigitalBridge contract