Ravnsborg Impeachment Investigation Price Tag Tops $87K

       South Dakota House Speaker Spencer Gosch says the impeachment investigation into Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg will cost state taxpayers at least $87,000. 

     Gosch tells the Argus Leader that the House Select Committee on Investigation racked up the bills on attorney fees while it looked into the events surrounding a fatal crash with a pedestrian in 2020. 

       Rapid City attorney Sara Frankenstein, hired by the panel as its special counsel, says she personally logged 208 hours working on the investigation.

      Frankenstein, a former Miss South Dakota, directed the 9-member committee through 10 separate meetings and reviews of hundreds of documents, recordings, and other materials.

     The committee last week issued a formal recommendation that the 45-year-old Ravnsborg should not face impeachment, but the full House doesn’t have to accept that recommendation when it meets later this month to make a final decision.

     If the House were to choose to go the other way and pass articles of impeachment, Ravnsborg would go on trial before the South Dakota Senate.