BOISE, ID – In March 2023, Daphne Huang emailed her supervisor — repeating concerns she had shared a day earlier.

She was troubled with the ethics of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office new management — months after Raúl Labrador became Idaho’s attorney general.

“I don’t think (the executive office) is concerned with our ethical responsibilities under professional rules of conduct to which we are all bound,” Huang wrote. “They instead appear intent on dismantling government, and doing so without regard for the people who believe in public service who fall in their wake. They have drawn the (Attorney General’s) Office into adversity with its clients based on anti-government pursuits irrespective of how the law applies to the facts.”

Judge again rejects Idaho Attorney General Office’s attempt to stop Labrador’s deposition

Before firing her a couple hours later, Labrador didn’t look into her concerns, he recently said in a deposition.

“I had no concerns. It was clear that she was not acting in good faith. And it was clear that she was already preparing for litigation,” Labrador said, according to a partial transcript.

Months before Huang’s whistleblower lawsuit against the Attorney General’s Office is set to go to a jury trial, the Attorney General’s Office has asked an Idaho judge to dismiss the case, arguing Huang was fired for misconduct — not whistleblowing. Huang was fired early in Labrador’s investigation into $72 million of child care grants distributed by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, the agency she represented as a deputy attorney general.

Huang’s email, Labrador’s deposition and hundreds of other pages of evidence were released in court documents related to the Attorney General’s Office request to dismiss the lawsuit.

AG’s Office says lawyer was fired for misconduct

In its request, attorneys for the Attorney General’s Office said: “Even under the most charitable interpretation of the facts, (Huang) was fired for misconduct — not for refusing to carry out an unlawful directive or for whistleblowing.”

Part of the case centers around Huang allegedly giving the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare the cell phone of her former supervisor, who was asked to resign days before Huang was fired. The phone had data that Health and Welfare allegedly claimed privilege over and was deleted from the phone before it was returned to the Attorney General’s Office, court documents show. That was despite a request from the Attorney General’s Office to return the phone with the data preserved, the records show.

The Attorney General’s Office argues that the timeline “is clear: she made alleged ethical complaints because she was being fired, and not the other way around.”

Huang’s attorneys responded with a timeline of the events leading up to her firing, arguing that Labrador started his leadership of the Attorney General’s Office with an unusual change.

“On the day he became AG, Labrador met with (deputy attorneys general) and staff and informed them everyone would be reappyling for their jobs and that he wanted employees who would be ‘Team Labrador,” Huang’s attorneys said.

They allege Labrador told staff that the Attorney General’s Office “did not represent state agencies.” That confused Huang, who knew the office’s attorneys “are public attorneys for the people of the state,” her lawyers say.

On Monday, Idaho 4th District Court Judge Jonathan Medema heard oral arguments on the Attorney General Office’s request to dismiss the case, through a motion for summary judgment. He will issue a decision later.

In court, Deputy Solicitor General Michael Zarian argued Huang didn’t refuse the office’s directive.

“A refusal would be to decline to accept the directive and to express that,” Zarian said. “And that is the definition of the word refusal. … But here, she expressed a willingness to agree and then did the opposite. And that’s just, honestly, dishonesty to your employer.”

An attorney for Huang, Guy Hallam, argued Huang did what she was supposed to do.

“The client requested the phone, and she gave it to the client. She has a duty to that client,” Hallam said. “… She did what she should do under the law, and under her duties under the rules of professional conduct. And it may have amounted to a refusal that they view as insubordination, but it’s appropriate under the law.”

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to a jury trial in October.

Recent court ruling affirmed Labrador’s civil subpoena power

This month, another court ruling seemed to clear a hurdle for the investigation. The Idaho Supreme Court on July 10 unanimously ruled Labrador had the authority to issue civil investigative demands to organizations that received the grant funds from Health and Welfare.

But the court wrote that “nothing in this opinion should be read as implying that we have concluded that any of the Grant Recipients have violated the law because we have not been asked to address that issue.”

In a statement after the ruling, Labrador said the office’s goal “is not to punish grant recipients but to ensure taxpayer funds were used according to state law.”

“We will continue to defend the investigative powers the Legislature has entrusted our office,” he said.

But more than two years after the investigation began, its status is unclear. For more than a year, state officials have released no information about how it’s going.

A timeline of Labrador’s investigation into Health and Welfare grants:

Launched months after the former congressman became Idaho’s top attorney in 2023, the grants investigation is one of several legal clashes Labrador has had with state government agencies that his office legally represents — including his now-dropped lawsuit against the State Board of Education related to University of Idaho’s attempted purchase of the University of Phoenix.

New records show state officials received more subpoenas

In late 2023, when Labrador’s special prosecutor, Christopher Boyd, told state health officials he’d withdraw the civil investigative demands that they sued to block, he said he’d look to appoint a special inquiry judge — a court process outlined in state law that allows secrecy. At the time, Boyd wouldn’t say whether such a judge had been appointed, the Sun previously reported.

But government records obtained by the Idaho Capital Sun through a public records request show state employees were subpoenaed in early 2024 or earlier to testify to a special inquiry judge. The records don’t identify the judge. Government agencies linked to the investigation could not be immediately reached for comment.

In an email on Feb. 26, 2024, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Deputy Director Jennifer Palagi told the agency’s then interim director, Dean Cameron, that two state officials had been subpoenaed by special prosecutor Boyd to testify before a special inquiry judge on March 5, 2024. Those subpoenas were similar to ones she, other current and former state officials — including the agency’s previous director, Dave Jeppesen — had received, Palagi wrote.

The Idaho governor’s then-director of operations, Lori Wolff, also received a similar subpoena, Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s General Counsel Brady Hall wrote in a separate Jan. 30, 2024 email.

All the subpoenas were signed by Boyd, sought testimony on the grants program and came with an “Agreement to Testify with Immunity,” Hall wrote.

The Idaho Capital Sun obtained the emails through a public records request to the Idaho governor’s office. An attorney for Huang first obtained the emails from the governor’s office after allegedly not receiving them in the legal discovery process from the Attorney General’s Office. Judge Medema in July denied Huang’s attorneys’ request for sanctions over the evidence dispute.

The emails also asked how to arrange legal representation for the subpoenaed officials. It’s not immediately clear whether the testimony sought by the subpoenas happened, or how legal representation for the officials was arranged.

The Idaho Attorney General’s Office declined to share information on the investigation’s status. Other agencies and officials involved in the emails or investigation — including the Idaho governor’s office, the Department of Health and Welfare, and Boyd, who is also Canyon County’s prosecuting attorney — could not be immediately reached for comment.

Boyd was also appointed as a special prosecutor in Ada County “to prosecute this case,” Chief Deputy Attorney General Phil Broadbent said in a reply email to the governor’s attorney in January 2024. Last week, the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office declined to comment on Boyd’s appointment, telling the Sun that the matter remains under investigation.

Idaho Capital Sun is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: info@idahocapitalsun.com.