Hall of Fame reporting tells us indictments could be in Ryan Walters' very near future
Hall of Fame reporting tells us indictments could be in Ryan Walters' very near future
The Oklahoman's Nolan Clay lets the multi-county grand jury cat out of the bag
You have to love Nolan Clay.
If the name sounds familiar yet you just can’t place it, he might be The Oklahoman’s longest employed reporter, there since 1985, and the quite rare still active member of his Hall of Fame.
In sports, they don’t allow it, but the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame does, and Clay was enshrined back in 2016.
He’s not an education reporter exactly, more of a guy-who-knows-pretty-much-everything-and-everybody reporter and thank goodness for it because in the top-right single-column position of The Oklahoman’s Monday morning front page, Clay’s story appeared under this headline.
“Grand jury looking at Walters.”
It’s a long time coming and isn’t it nice to know, if state attorney general Gentner Drummond’s office isn’t stunningly swift — in fairness, we can all agree Walters, his state department of education and state school board have kept the AG’s office quite busy since the ’22 election — nor has it been knocked off its line and, finally, an indictment or two, three or four could be arriving as soon as next month.
Here are the first two paragraphs of Clay’s story:
The state’s multicounty grand jury is looking into the misspending of pandemic relief funds and state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, according to multiple sources.
Grand jurors heard testimony last week about Walters and issues with GEER Fund programs in Oklahoma, sources said. They issued no indictments. Their next session is Oct. 8-10.
Whoa.
A thunderclap.
Still, my favorite paragraph of the story is the next one:
The sources spoke to The Oklahoman on the condition they not be identified because of the strict secrecy rule surrounding grand jury proceedings. Walters, a Republican, did not respond to requests for comment.
You have to love it for couple of reasons.
One, it makes clear the high stakes of the grand jury, because NOBODY’S supposed to know what goes on behind that closed door, thereby making Clay’s ability to get the info told to him, whoever told it to him, all the more impressive.
He’s not in the hall of fame for nothing.
It’s why terrific lifer reporters are worth their weight in gold, because without them who knows all the things we’d never know.
An ironic aside, were the paper’s ownership at the time of Clay’s hiring still in place, good chance Clay would have had to eat his story, the old ownership being all about keeping Oklahomans dumb, uninformed and unaware of most anything capable of aiding a progressive cause or taking down a conservative one, no matter how corrupt.
That, thankfully, was then.
Two, Walters’ silence is golden.
He will make political hay of a young student’s suicide, challenge house Republicans afraid of their own shadow to put their names on his impeachment, accuse a state senator attempting to exercise oversight of running interference for pedophiles and flagrantly pillage state coffers to make himself a conservative media star, to say nothing of laying waste to public education from both the inside out and the outside in, attempting to meld church and state on the one hand, while filling curriculum committees with out-of-state activists and importing PragerU on the other.
As Clay reported, the grand jury proceeding go back to the distribution of GEER funds, a portion of which governor Kevin Stitt put Walters in charge to administrate at a time he remained executive director of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma.
In that role, according to a 2023 state audit, Walters was instrumental in choosing out-of-state firm ClassWallet to be the vendor through which Oklahomans might purchase, with GEER funds, education supplies helpful to their learning during the COVID pandemic.
Instead, an eventual report from state auditor Cindy Byrd found $1.7 million to have been spent instead on “various non-educational items such as kitchen appliances, power tools, furniture and entertainment,” a state of affairs only made possible by Walters giving “blanket approval” to all purchases.
Under previous attorney general John M. O’Connor, happy to do Stitt’s bidding, the state sued ClassWallet.
Drummond famously killed the suit, saying “state actors” were to blame.
Actors. Plural.
That might be a good thing to remember, too.
On his personal X account Monday, Walters retweeted a Libs of TikTok post, adding his own comment, “There are two genders and Oklahoma schools will not participate in pronoun gymnastics.”
Sunday, when he had to know Clay’s story was in the works, he tweeted “Extremists will never stop trying to destroy @realDonald Trump,” never stopping to think, perhaps, the real extremists are those, like Trump himself, inciting violence upon legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, claiming they’re stealing, killing and eating the townsfolk dogs and cats.
You know, playing the hits, but offering nothing about very real and serious legal threats coming his way.
Not only did Clay get the grand jury’s proceedings to be told to him, he got some of the witnesses, too.
Among them, Brenda Holt, a director in Bird’s state auditor’s office and Jennifer Carter, a political consultant who helped to administrate other GEER funds.
Who knows who’ll be giving testimony Oct. 8-10.
Perhaps Stitt himself, trying keep his own good name by finally tattling on Walters; or Walters’ gang that can’t shoot straight, strategist Matt Langston and spokesperson Dan Isett, both with likely knowledge of the little man’s very large secrets.
One presumes criminal defense attorneys are being retained. Stories are being straightened. Or, maybe, with eyes toward saving one’s own skin, they’re not.
Some trials don’t last three days, making 72 hours more than enough time to secure an indictment, or a round of them, targeting one or many.
Being Ryan Walters can’t be easy these days.
Nor has being an Oklahoman since he first stepped foot on our stage.