When the New Hampshire ACLU released documents showing that the Trump administration had informed the state that it was considering a Merrimack location for an ICE facility in a letter dated January 9, everyone asked, “What did Kelly Ayotte know and when did she know it?”
But they should have been asking, “How the hell does Sarah Stewart still have a job?”
Stewart is the hapless bureaucrat who heads the state’s obscure Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR). It’s the sort of low-profile job you give to third-rate hacks to keep them from causing trouble.
And yet despite having so few responsibilities, Stewart keeps finding ways to stumble into embarrassing headlines.
She gave the governor a proclamation declaring a fire ban, but she forgot to have the Executive Council vote on it first, as required by law. Ayotte had to retract it and, being far too gracious, took the blame herself.
And then there was the case of the Lefty Librarian.
On his way out the door in 2024, Sununu nominated Mindy Atwood to succeed Michael York as State Librarian, a controversial pick so hot even Sununu had to drop her. Despite the council’s opposition to Atwood, Stewart’s department promoted her to acting State Librarian and gave her a pay bump for almost a year.
Problematically, this pay bump was illegal. This time, it was Commissioner of Administrative Services Charlie Arlinghaus who had to fall on Sarah Stewart’s sword.
The most infamous faceplant was her mishandling of a historic marker honoring an unrepentant Communist and mounted in downtown Concord.
The marker honored Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who once led the Communist Party USA and received a state funeral from the Soviet Union in Moscow’s Red Square.
Stewart was apparently unaware of who her department was celebrating until Executive Councilor Dave Wheeler (R-Milford) brought it up at an Executive Council meeting, expressing his outrage that the state would approve a memorial to an enemy of the United States.
Stewart tried to foist it off on the city of Concord, until the city presented the paperwork proving the request for the marker came from one of her employees. Then she blamed her staff. Hey– how is she supposed to know what Commie propaganda her office is approving?
It took several weeks and a unilateral action by then-Gov. Chris Sununu to clean up Stewart’s mess and pull the marker down. Then, for some unexplained reason, Sununu kept her on the job, nominating her for another term as commissioner.
Now she’s Ayotte’s problem. Literally.
Why didn’t the information that the Department of Homeland Security reached out to Stewart’s department make it to Ayotte’s desk?
Some Democrats say it did, and Ayotte was trying to hide it.
“Gov. Ayotte played dumb just last Wednesday about ICE’s plans to build a detention center in Merrimack when State government was notified about it two weeks earlier,” said state Rep. But Rep. Rosemarie Rung (D-Merrimack).
But to what end? With protesters already on the march in Merrimack, there was no chance ICE was going to commandeer a building and nobody would notice until it was too late. What’s the upside for Ayotte to keep it secret?
According to Stewart’s “I’m responsible, but it’s not my fault” statement on Tuesday, Stewart again blamed her staff.
“Division Directors are supposed to notify me of any Right-to-Know Requests or Section 106 Requests for Review of any matters potentially significant to the State,” she wrote. “I have reminded my team to notify me of requests of this nature, so I am positioned to review them and alert the Governor’s Office on all sensitive matters.”
At this point, you have to hope Stewart’s gig is a no-show job, like Stefany Shaheen at ARMI. At least then, she’d have an excuse for never knowing what the hell is happening in her own office.
And even if you want to believe that Stewart is just incompetent, how realistic is it that, with nonstop media coverage of Minneapolis and angry marchers in Merrimack, a state employee would get a letter about an ICE detention center and just pass it along like it was this morning’s Wordle answers?
Wouldn’t the normal reaction be “Holy crap, I better show the boss!”
Instead, Stewart claims, she knew nothing until the information was leaked to the ACLU.
Yes, “leaked.”
Look at the letters in the ACLU document dump. You’ll see an email on January 26 with the 91-A request for the relevant documents sent, not to a press person, but to a program specialist in the Division of Historical Resources. You’ll also see a letter dated January 27 — just 24 hours later — from the DHR announcing it is responding with “all materials subject to your RTK request.”
So the ACLU reaches out to a specific person in a tiny division of a backwater department, asks for specific information about a specific address and a specific project — and gets everything it wants in 24 hours?
Executive Councilor John Stephen is right.
“The ACLU knew exactly who to ask and what to ask for at the obscure Division of Historical Resources,” he posted on social media Tuesday.
“It appears that someone inside DNCR made a deliberate choice to keep the Governor in the dark here, but make sure the ACLU had everything it needed.”
Who would want to do that? Who would want to strike a blow against the Trump administration and embarrass Ayotte in the process?
Could it be a DNCR employee who’s been posting paintings on social media they’ve made “in response to the deep sadness I feel watching what is unfolding in Minneapolis.” Images representing “the True administration and the imbalance of power shaping this moment… grief, anger and resistance suspended in the air.” Could it be someone whose husband is a failed GOP operative who spends his days spewing Trump Derangement Syndrome on Twitter to feed his delusions of adequacy? Someone who recently posted an image of herself sporting a Minnesota lapel pin?
Who is that person?
Sarah Stewart, of course.