Emails show Delaware lieutenant governor’s staff engaged in campaign matters during business hours

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long’s office staff was in regular communication last year with her husband and other people involved in her campaign for Delaware governor and worked during office hours to help facilitate the use of campaign funds, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press.

The emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Hall-Long enlisted her office staff, working with her husband, to help with matters bearing little if any relevance to her role as lieutenant governor. They include renewing her memberships in various women’s groups and making donations to community groups. Some of those expenditures were made with campaign funds.

Under Delaware law, state employees are prohibited from engaging in any political activity during work hours. As an elected official, Hall-Long is exempt from that provision, but her office staff is not.

Among the officials who engaged in communications related to Hall-Long’s campaign was Matthew Dougherty, director of operations in the lieutenant governor’s office. Dougherty recently took a leave of absence to serve as Hall-Long’s campaign manager. The move came after the latest in a series of shakeups in Hall-Long’s troubled campaign, as two top staffers left in the wake of a campaign finance audit commissioned by the state elections department.

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