A campaign finance complaint filed in January against Secretary of State Jena Griswold is slated to be dismissed next month.
The complaint, filed by the Public Trust Institute, which has filed five complaints against Griswold — four of them dismissed — alleged a jenaforgovernor.com website showed Griswold’s intent to run for governor without filing a candidate affidavit, a required personal financial disclosure statement and filing a candidate committee.
Since the Secretary of State generally investigates campaign complaints, the Attorney General’s office handled the investigation against Griswold.
The conclusion is that insufficient evidence supports the finding that Griswold violated state campaign finance law.
According to the investigation, Griswold’s brother, Chris Griswold, a consultant for Hilltop Public Solutions, is to blame. Chris Griswold advised her campaigns in 2018 and 2022.
The investigation said that on Aug. 8, 2024, Chris Griswold bought the jenaforgovernor.com domain from GoDaddy: “Respondent did not direct Chris Griswold to purchase the domain for the Website” and was unaware of its existence until Dec. 20, the day it was publicly disclosed through a news story on 9News.
The investigation said Chris Griswold was unaware that GoDaddy used artificial intelligence to create a landing page available to the public and that he was unaware of the website’s public disclosure, including a “launching soon” text and a subscription form allowing visitors to subscribe for updates. One person whose information was not disclosed signed up.
“Chris Griswold was the only person with access to information gathered through the Website and did not use the information in any way, including by adding subscriber emails to other mailing lists or sending affirmative communications,” the investigation reported.
When 9News initially contacted Chris Griswold about the website, he stated that it was “definitely” not their domain, the complaint said.
“When confronted with the information that the subscription service was tied to the public email address, the Griswold campaign said they would have to research it. Then, despite initially declaring with certainty it wasn’t theirs, they reversed course and said it was ‘typical practice’ to buy domain names. However, there is no evidence they bought other domain names, and there was no required campaign expenditure reporting,” the complaint said.
When 9News’ Marshal Zellinger signed up for the email updates, the automated reply came from Chris Griswold’s email address.
Chris Griswold deactivated the website after being contacted by 9News. In a statement to 9News last December, he spoke on behalf of Jena Griswold, stating, “Secretary Griswold is focused on her two important roles: serving as the Secretary of State and as a new mom. She has not decided on her service to the state beyond 2026.
Secretary Griswold made an identical statement to 9News.
Jena Griswold announced last week that she is running for attorney general, rather than governor, and the investigation found that she never publicly disclosed an interest in running for governor.
The order of dismissal becomes final on May 7.
Neither Chris Griswold nor the campaign for Jena Griswold responded to a request for comment.
