Ravnsborg impeachment committee to send cease and desist letter to Noem

PIERRE, S.D. - South Dakotans have a timeline for when the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg will be voted on.

The State House’s Select Committee on Investigation, tasked with considering the impeachment of Ravnsborg, announced Thursday that they intended to deliver an investigative report and a recommendation as to whether or not the body should pursue impeachment by the end of March, in time for Veto Day. The report and recommendations will also be made available to the public.

Upon receipt of the report, House lawmakers will be unable to take any formal action on the report and recommendations for at least 14 days after it is received by the body, in accordance with the resolution that created the committee. Gosch told reports after the hearing that the full body will reconvene on April 12th to consider whether or not to impeach Ravnsborg.

Gosch also told reporters that the committee intends to send a cease and desist letter to the Executive branch for “attempting to taint the information out there.”

The decision to send that letter comes after Department of Public Safety Secretary Craig Price sent a public letter to Gosch laying out the case for why he believes Ravnsborg should be impeached.

In the letter, Price shared new information about Ravnsborg’s personal conduct and communications in the days after the crash.

“To go through information that is clearly not relevant to this situation, and trying to release it to the public to sway their opinion, how is that not an issue?” Gosch asked. “It is a disgusting disregard for due process.”

Should the House vote to impeach the Attorney General on April 12th, Senate lawmakers would have to wait at least 20 days before they could commence their own impeachment trial.