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Democrat Karen Liot Hill, whose unorthodox campaign spending in her Executive Council race has already raised ethical questions, failed to meet the filing deadline for both of her final two campaign reports. 

One of the Lebanon Democrat’s reports was due Oct. 30, the other on Nov. 13. But neither was filed with the Secretary of State’s Office until Thursday, Dec. 12 and they didn’t appear in the public campaign finance database until Dec. 13.

Liot Hill is set to be sworn in next month as the District 2 Executive Councilor, replacing Cinde Warmington, who chose to run for governor rather than another term on the council. Warmington lost to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig in the Democratic primary. Craig went on to lose to Republican Kelly Ayotte in the general election.

Liot Hill handily defeated Republican Kim Strathdee in the heavily-Democrat district.

In October, NHJournal broke the story of Liot Hill’s questionable campaign finance spending in her primary against Democrat Mike Liberty. According to her campaign disclosures, Liot Hill spent thousands in campaign cash on meals, clothes, and visits to salons. Her campaign expenditures included a $190 ferry ride to the Hamptons and $181 to register her car.

She also reported spending $7,004 on gas for her car, $755 for car maintenance, and another $8,330 on meals.

A major concern regarding her original reports were two checks, one for $700 and another for $650, that did not include details on who she paid or for what election-related purpose. Both the checks correspond chronologically to court costs charged against Liot Hill. 

On Dec. 12, 2023, a car financing company filed a motion for contempt against Liot Hill in Lebanon District Court for her failure to comply with a previous payment order. At the time, she had a balance of more than $1,000.

In January, Liot Hill pleaded no contest to a 2023 violation for driving with a suspended license and agreed to pay $620 in fines and court costs. However, court records show Liot Hill’s first check to cover the fine bounced.

In response to NHJournal’s reporting, Liot Hill filed amended reports. She listed the two checks for $1,350 as reimbursements to Liot Hill for campaign expenses. And while the first campaign finance documents were signed by Liot Hill’s campaign treasurer Corinne Morse, the amended filing was signed by Liot Hill herself, who took over the treasurer duties for her own campaign.

At the time, neither Morse nor Liot Hill would confirm that Morse had actually signed the original reports.

Liot Hill declined to respond to questions from NHJournal, including inquiries into whether she is currently under investigation for any of her campaign filings.

Liot Hill did not respond when contacted on Dec. 12 by NHJournal about the reports. Nor did the Secretary of State’s Office respond to NHJournal’s questions about the reports. The New Hampshire attorney general would not confirm or deny if an investigation is underway. Contacted Saturday, Morse said she has not been interviewed by anyone from the Attorney General’s Office.

The Executive Council’s job is to provide oversight of state spending on behalf of the taxpayers, which makes the issues surrounding Liot Hill particularly problematic, said New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager.

“For someone who must review state contracts, these reports are very disturbing.”

Days after an NHJournal article about her questionable campaign spending on personal items like home heating oil and paying her car registration, Democrat Karen Liot Hill (D-District 2) filed an amended financial disclosure.

In addition to changing some of the details of her spending, the amended documents are missing two key items from the originals: the name and signature of her campaign treasurer Corinne Morse.

On the amended forms, Morse is replaced by Liot Hill, who has declared herself the treasurer for her campaign spending — despite the fact that Morse had already signed off on the spending in question. 

Now, Liot Hill is dodging NHJournal’s questions about Morse’s involvement in overseeing her campaign finances.

Liot Hill bested fellow Democrat Mike Liberty in the Executive Council District 2 primary in September and easily defeated a token GOP opponent in the heavily-Democratic district.

Morse, a Democrat from Canaan elected to the legislature in 2022, had served as treasurer for Liot Hill’s run to replace Cinde Warmington. Morse’s name and signature appear on all original reports. They included unexplained checks totaling $1,350 that appeared to correspond to two court cases against Liot Hill: a violation for driving with a suspended license and another involving a debt collection.

She also included house cleaning, home heating oil, and more than $15,000 in gas and meals expenses in her campaign spending reports, all with what is purportedly Morse’s signature.

By amending the filings, Liot Hill is conceding there were problems with her initial paperwork. The question is whether, as treasurer, Morse asked about the details of the filings before she signed them? And why didn’t she sign the amended documents for the same spending period?

In fact, NHJournal asked Morse, did she actually sign the original campaign reports in the first place?

Morse declined to answer the question.

“I can’t comment on that,” Morse told NHJournal on Monday.

Nor did Morse respond to an email from NHJournal that included one of the original reports to confirm that the signature appearing on it is hers. Morse’s own campaign finance reports and her House financial disclosure forms appear to have been filed electronically and did not require a physical signature that could be used for comparison.

Liot Hill did not want to take questions when reached by phone on Monday, but offered to answer questions via email. However, when she responded on Tuesday, Liot Hill did not answer NHJournal’s questions about Morse’s signature or her decision to act as her own treasurer.

“I am proud that I ran my entire campaign on a minimal budget, doing almost everything myself from my car as I crisscrossed the district to meet as many voters as possible. As many candidates do, I have recently filed amended reports, making some clarifications and minor corrections. These items make up a very small percentage of my overall campaign budget, but it is important to correct even small mistakes, so I have done that. Corinne Morse stepped down as treasurer for my campaign after the primary, and the amended reports bear my signature. I look forward to serving on the Executive Council and finding common ground so that I can help tackle the challenges facing New Hampshire and deliver results for Granite Staters,” Liot Hill wrote to NHJournal.

Acting as her own treasurer, the mysterious checks that appeared to correspond with two court cases are now listed as reimbursements the campaign paid to Liot Hill for various software subscriptions as well as cell phone and internet services. 

On Dec. 12, a car financing company filed a motion for contempt against Liot Hill in Lebanon District Court for her failure to comply with a previous payment order. At the time, she had a balance of more than $1,000.

In January of this year, Liot Hill pleaded no contest to a 2023 violation for driving with a suspended license and agreed to pay $620 in fines and court costs. However, court records show Liot Hill’s first check to cover the fine bounced.

Forging or knowingly falsifying state campaign finance documents is a crime, as is misreporting campaign finance spending.

In 2005, former House Speaker Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to report $64,000 in contributions from lobbyists and special interests. The money was raised at Chandler’s annual “Old Fashioned Corn Roast.” Chandler paid a $2,000 fine and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

New Hampshire’s Supreme Court ruled this week that Granite State courts have seen enough of Portsmouth attorney Justin Nadeau, disbarring him after he was caught doctoring evidence in his ethics case before the Professional Conduct Committee.

“It’s difficult for me to imagine something worse for a lawyer to do,” one PCC member said, according to the court records.

Nadeau, once a Democratic candidate in the First Congressional District, was brought before the PCC after he allegedly got a client who was impaired by a traumatic brain injury, Exeter woman Shawn Fahey, to give him $300,000 in loans in 2018. Nadeau allegedly secured the loans with a condo he did not own, tax liens, and the anticipated proceeds from a pending defamation lawsuit he had against the Portsmouth Police Department.

Nadeau allegedly told Fahey until the defamation lawsuit was resolved he was “strapped for cash.”

The lawsuit against Portsmouth’s police stems from an arrest of Portsmouth man Christian Jennings. Jennings was allegedly found with quantities of marijuana, Ecstasy, amphetamines, a loaded gun, and $42,000 in cash. According to police, Nadeau was handling an $85,000 marina investment for Jennings before the arrest, though the marina deal never closed. Nadeau brought the lawsuit when police opened an investigation into whether or not he was laundering drug money. The defamation case was settled in 2019.

Nadeau also allegedly hid the $165,000 he collected after he sent Fahey to a Massachusetts attorney to handle her injury case. Nadeau reportedly collected referral fees from the Massachusetts attorney as well as other money related to Fahey’s case.

According to the Supreme Court’s disbarment order released Tuesday, Nadeau slow-walked producing documents related to the case to the PCC. The Democrat even destroyed his computer before the hearing. Nadeau claims he made all the appropriate conflict of interest disclosures and eventually produced printed copies of the letter he claimed he sent her.

However, James Berriman, the computer expert hired by the PCC, looked through Nadeau’s office server and found the dates on the documents Nadeau gave to the committee were fake, and the documents were created well after he took the money from Fahey.

“As a member of the PCC observed at oral argument before the PCC, ‘the Berriman Report and the spoliation of evidence, in my mind . . . is one of the most significant violations I have seen in decades of practice before the ADO before joining this committee,’” the court ruling states.

Nadeau argued that disbarment is too harsh a penalty, but the Court found that his “deliberate, multi-year effort to deceive the disciplinary authority” and the ethics complaints involved in Fahey’s case make un-lawyering him appropriate.

Nadeau’s father, J.P. Nadeau, agreed to resign from the New Hampshire Bar Association in 2009 after he was investigated for a conflict of interest for representing a construction company involved in a dispute with Justin Nadeau.

Nadeau once had hopes of higher office, running an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against then-Congressman Jeb Bradley (R). Nadeau’s campaign was spearheaded by Steve Marchand, Portsmouth’s former mayor who ,himself went on to unsuccessful runs for higher office. In recent years, Marchand has been warned by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office for skirting campaign laws.

The House Ethics Committee ruled Tuesday that state Rep. Alissandra Murray must recuse on votes related to abortion issues and the nonprofit paying the Manchester Democrat’s salary, an indirect rebuke to her questionable actions as a House member.

Murray is a co-founder and employee of the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire (RFFNH). NHJournal reported in October that RFFNH lobbyist Josie Pinto was paying Murray’s salary so the progressive could serve in the House and influence legislation. And while Murray had voted on many pieces of legislation related to abortion issues of interest to RFFNH, she had never filed a conflict of interest disclosure.

The bipartisan Ethics Committee ruled the lawmaker’s votes on some abortion bills ran afoul of House conflict of interest rules and ordered Murray to recuse in the future. That was not the ruling Murray, who sought the advisory opinion, wanted to hear.

Rep. Alissandra Murray and attorney William Christie at House Ethics Committee hearing on December 5, 2023.

Murray’s attorney, well-connected Democratic lawyer William Christie, acknowledged the only reason his client sought the opinion was because of NHJournal’s reporting. 

“Because of the article and controversy, Rep. Murray felt this is the best course,” Christie said. Christie is married to Democratic Executive Councilor and candidate for governor Cinde Warmington. 

The committee voted five to one to tell Murray to recuse on all bills on which RFFNH lobbies. The one no vote came from Sen. Cindy Rosenwald (D-Nashua).

House members are required under ethics rules to either recuse themselves from voting on bills that could be seen as a conflict of interest, or to file a declaration of intent to vote in order to publicly disclose the potential conflict of interest. Despite several abortion bills before the legislature in the last session, Murray never filed a declaration of intent to vote. 

Christie told the committee Murray did not think filing a declaration was necessary despite the full-time job with an organization that lobbies on particular abortion-related bills.

“Since this issue came to light, (Murray) reviewed with counsel and others and does not think a declaration of intent to vote is necessary,” Christie said. 

Christie claimed during the hearing that Murray’s job with RFFNH has nothing to do with Murray’s elected position. But Pinto told The Nation magazine that Murray’s salary was part of a plan to get a pro-abortion advocate to be in the House.

“Together, we sort of developed this theory of change, which was like, ‘If we want to see the state we want, we have to get our people to run,’” Pinto told the magazine.

The article spelled out RFFNH’s plan to have a paid activist in the House.

“But there was a major obstacle in their way: New Hampshire’s Legislature pays a salary of just $100 a year. That’s fine for wealthy retirees but not for working-class activists. So Pinto hired Murray at the Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire, giving [Murray] a salary that would allow [Murray] to work in the Legislature while running the abortion fund’s social media accounts.”

Christie argued that since the RFFNH would not financially benefit from any of the abortion-related proposals considered, and since the organization is not primarily a lobbying group, Murray’s votes do not cross any ethical lines.

Committee Chair Edward Gordon did not appear to buy that argument in light of the fact the RFFNH did lobby for five abortion-related bills that Murray then voted on. 

“I’m looking at it intuitively, and looking at it intuitively, I would say, ‘Geez, don’t I have a conflict here?’ Didn’t Rep. Murray say, ‘This is close; this is something I would have a concern with here if someone else did it’?”

Murray claimed to believe filing an annual financial disclosure form listing the RFFNH employment and salary — a form every House member with a job fills out — was notice enough.

“When I filled out the disclosure form, I thought that was me disclosing,” Murray said. “I didn’t see any clear conflict when I was voting on these bills.”

Pinto did not speak during the hearing but acknowledged to the committee through her attorney that, as RFFNH executive director, she did lobby on five bills, spending about $800 in total on those efforts.

The fact Murray’s employer, RFFNH, lobbied on any bill and spent any money was enough to create a conflict of interest, according to David Hess, a former state representative and committee member.

“The guidelines are pretty clear,” Hess said. “[Murray] is getting income from an organization that is lobbying.”

Christie said RFFPNH would not have been financially impacted by any of the bills for which Pinto lobbied since the organization maintains such a narrow mission. He also said Pinto spent a relatively low amount on only five bills.

But Hess said the fact that the group’s executive director lobbied on the bills showed Pinto considered the legislation important to the RFFNH mission. He also cited a recent committee opinion imposing recusal on a Republican.

Last summer, the committee told Rep. Deborah Hobson (R-East Kingston) that she would have to recuse herself on bills if she took a job with a conservative advocacy group. Hobson sought the advisory opinion while considering a job with Americans for Prosperity. The committee’s answer was Hobson should recuse herself from any bill that AFP lobbies for or against.

Hobson and Murray’s situation are nearly identical, Hess said, and the result should be as well.

“I see no distinction whatsoever between the two situations,” Hess said. “It’s an employee getting income from a firm engaged in lobbying. The money and time amount are irrelevant.”

A complete advisory opinion draft will be voted on at the committee’s next meeting.

The business owner behind a popular Barrington gun shop has the signatures necessary to go after the town officials who he claims targeted his livelihood. 

“They have to call the meeting now,” said Rob Russell.

He isn’t stopping with a special Town Meeting to fire the town administrator and town treasurer. Russell now wants a seat on the town’s select board. He plans to run for one of the seats up at the March Town Meeting. 

“I don’t even want to run for selectman, I don’t have the time. But I feel a sense of duty,” Russell said. “These selectmen just don’t care about the people.”

Russell, a retired military veteran who runs 2A Tactical out of his Tolend Road home, recently submitted petitions with the signatures of 178 registered voters, enough to trigger the special Town Meeting he wants to be called to have Town Administrator Conner MacIver and Town Treasurer Peter Royce fired.

Royce was caught using his town office to orchestrate a campaign against Russell’s business, according to documents compiled by Russell.

Russell’s 2A Tactical gunsmithing shop has been the center of controversy for years in Barrington. He originally opened it as a home business, but as the business took off so did the traffic in his residential neighborhood.

Russell soon found himself embroiled in a lawsuit as the town alleged zoning ordinance violations. However, after Russell prevailed during two zoning board of adjustment hearings, the town dropped the lawsuit this spring.

Select Board Chair Dan Mannschreck, said this week that once all the signatures are verified the board will put scheduling the meeting on its next agenda. 

“We hope to do it as soon as possible,” Mannschreck said.

Russell is presenting a single warrant article for the meeting, one that essentially asks voters to either fire or keep MacIver and Royce. However, since Barrington is an SB 2 town, voters will first be given the opportunity to have a deliberative session to discuss the warrant article, and offer any changes, before the official ballot vote Mannschreck said.

Russell is worried the deliberative session will be stacked with those opposed to firing Royce and MacIver and that his warrant article will get watered down or changed. 

Russell is a military veteran and a former police officer. His shop is staffed by other veterans and the business has built up a community of loyal customers. They come to his store on the residential Tolend Road for classes as well as events.

What is unusual about Russell’s case, according to documents shared with NH Journal, is that Royce, the part-time town treasurer, used his position and knowledge of town operations to actively lobby against Russell’s business. At one point, Royce used his town email to communicate with MacIver about the case. After prodding, MacIver told Royce that people were encouraged to file complaints against Russell if they have concerns.

Royce allegedly organized people throughout the neighborhood to file complaints against Russell’s business, landing Russell before the ZBA, the select board, and the courts.

According to a letter from the town’s law firm to MacIver, Royce’s use of his official town email crossed the line.

“Mr. Royce is the town’s appointed treasurer. Of course, he does not lose his rights as a citizen by assuming such a position. He may contact code enforcement with concerns just as any other citizen may, and code enforcement treats his complaints no differently than those from other citizens. I agree that Mr. Royce should not be using his town email for any communications in his personal capacity, and he has been so counseled,” wrote attorney Laura Spector-Morgan to town officials.

MacIver did not respond to a request for comment. Previously he said Royce was talked to about his email use, but it was not clear if there were any other consequences. Except, perhaps, Russell’s special Town Meeting.