Audit Standoff Escalates: DiZoglio Accuses AG of Cover-Up, Claims Legislature Destroying Records

BY ELLA ADAMS

Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s new claim that the stalling of her legislative audit is giving lawmakers time to destroy documents and records is “baseless,” according to House Speaker Ron Mariano’s office, which this week also knocked the “unconstitutionality” of DiZoglio’s proposed audit.

The fresh back and forth shows there’s no end in sight for the accusations and retorts that have flowed from Beacon Hill since voters passed the law in November 2024. It has yet to be implemented or enforced more than a year since 72% of voters backed DiZoglio’s crusade to audit the Legislature.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Auditor Diana DiZoglio have engaged in an extended she said-she said over responsibility as DiZoglio has repeatedly requested that Campbell represent her, or allow her to utilize outside representation, to sue lawmakers for not complying with her attempted audit.

After Campbell on Tuesday again maintained that she needs more information from DiZoglio to move forward on either front — telling “Boston Public Radio” hosts that “I hope the auditor stops the standoff” — DiZoglio pulled the Legislature into the conversation.

“She cannot continue to claim that my office hasn’t given her what she needs, yet refuse to sue me,” the Methuen Democrat said. “She has the power to sue both me and the Legislature, right now, but refuses to do either. These are all stall tactics giving the Legislature more time to destroy documents and records.”

DiZoglio added: “What we are all witnessing right before our eyes is nothing short of public corruption. Our AG has conspired with the Speaker and Senate President to secure a very large budget increase for herself as a reward for this cover up. It’s beyond disgraceful.”

Constitutional question lingers

House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka’s offices heavily disputed DiZoglio’s claims. 

“The Auditor’s baseless claims are indicative of her biases towards the Legislature, and are an attempted distraction from the unconstitutionality of her proposed audit,” Mariano spokesperson Ana Vivas said in a statement. “The House is already audited every year by an independent auditing firm, and the final report for each year is posted to the Legislature’s website.” 

With state government just having passed the midway point of fiscal 2026, the most recent House audit available is from fiscal year 2023. A fiscal 2024 audit is underway by the firm CliftonLarsonAllen, and will be posted to the Legislature’s website upon completion, according to Mariano’s office. The audit for fiscal 2025 will begin as soon as fiscal 2024’s is complete.

In a statement, Spilka spokesperson Gray Milkowski called that latest allegations from the auditor “clickbait claims” that he said distract the Senate from its work fighting the Trump administration. 

Milkowski said “independent experts” have offered public testimony suggesting another branch of government auditing the Legislature raises constitutional concerns, and said DiZoglio “has offered no legal analysis or evidence to the contrary.”

The unresolved constitutionality question is more than two years old. DiZoglio requested in August 2023 that Campbell recognize that the auditor’s office has statutory and constitutional authority to audit the Legislature over its objection. Campbell responded in a November 2023 letter that the auditor doesn’t have such authority under existing law. 

“Should the initiative become law, we may need to consider whether, and the extent to which, constitutional limitations affect how the law would apply,” Campbell included near the end of the letter. 

Asked about the conclusion on the “unconstitutionality” of DiZoglio’s proposed audit, Mariano’s office pointed to concerns expressed by experts who testified before the Committee on Initiative Petitions in 2024 and Campbell’s 2023 letter to DiZoglio. A letter from House Chief Legal Counsel James Kennedy to Mariano also argues that a legislative audit by the state auditor’s office would violate the state Constitution, and disputes claims DiZoglio has made that the most recent audit of the Legislature was in 1922.

The Senate in February 2025 held a subcommittee meeting with members of DiZoglio’s office. Invitees at a Senate hearing that April suggested a legislative audit could cause “indirect interference” in the legislative process. One argued that it’s within the auditor’s legal rights to probe the Legislature and that “a frontal challenge to the will of the people, in this historical context, is a mistake.” DiZoglio did not attend. 

The House last February hired the firm CEK Boston in connection with possible litigation over the audit law. “It is routine for state agencies to retain outside counsel when confronted with novel questions of law,” Vivas said in a statement. 

“Outside counsel will supplement the House’s in-house counsel in order to ensure that House personnel can remain focused on the legislative session, and on protecting the Commonwealth from the most severe impacts of federal policy decisions,” Vivas continued. “The House will not be distracted from its important work by the Auditor’s pursuit of a political audit.” 

DiZoglio did not provide evidence to the News Service that the Legislature is destroying records.

“Since the Legislature is not subject to the public records law, they are able to destroy – without legal repercussions – many of the documents our office seeks to audit,” she said. 

DiZoglio said it’s “incumbent upon the Legislature to ensure evidence is produced to demonstrate that they are not destroying records” and said audits of other entities have shown that documents and records have “been either lost or destroyed throughout state government.”

DiZoglio is attempting to make most records held by the Legislature and governor’s office subject to public records law via another measure that could go before voters this November. 

Addressing DiZoglio’s corruption allegation, Vivas pointed to April 2025 when Mariano said that the increase in funding for the attorney general’s budget was designed to ensure that the attorney general’s office “can continue to push back against any unconstitutional actions from the Trump administration and to protect our residents.” Campbell’s office has been involved in dozens of lawsuits against the federal government. 

Asked why she believes there’s conspiracy between the Legislature and Campbell, considering Mariano’s reasoning for the budget increase, DiZoglio said, “The AG is a close political friend and ally with the top legislators responsible for this lawbreaking and received an unprecedented 12% budget increase from those same lawbreaking legislators.” 

“No one else has the legal authority to enforce this law besides the AG. And, no one else is allowed to break the law besides the people who fund the AG’s budget,” DiZoglio added.

A path forward?

Backed by a spectrum of political parties, advocates and voters, DiZoglio’s audit fight has continued. 

Talk of a lawsuit came from the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance in December 2024, around a month after voters passed the law. MassFiscal spokesman Paul Craney doubled down this week on his comments that the group is “always looking to sue the state,” as he said at the time. But legally, he said the conservative think tank can’t go to court to try to enforce the law. 

“The person who has standing to enforce the law is the auditor herself, not voters. We looked at this along with Pioneer Legal — there seems to be an issue there with standing. It’s hard for us to go before a judge and say the audit law needs to be enforced because it’s not necessarily our job to enforce it,” Craney explained. If the auditor is able to get before a court, Craney said MassFiscal and others could “offer amicus” in support. 

“If the attorney general has questions about the auditor, all she has to do is subpoena the auditor. She does it to a lot of other agencies and she does it to Trump on a daily basis,” Craney added, echoing DiZoglio’s request that Campbell sue her for answers.

Campbell’s office said there’s no legal reason for Campbell to bring a lawsuit against the auditor, since DiZoglio is the one who initiated the litigation request against the Legislature. For DiZoglio to move forward, she must provide information required of any state agency or official looking to bring litigation forward, it added. 

There is also no deadline by which Campbell has to authorize a lawsuit, her office confirmed. 

Campbell maintains that she is still awaiting answers to questions about the major legal issues of the case. According to her office, those questions include what DiZoglio believes she can and cannot audit, who she would sue and what the legal claim would be. 

According to DiZoglio’s Communications Director Alysha Palumbo Garvin, the office has been engaging with outside counsel since last July in an effort to “navigate the complexities of gaining access to court, with the knowledge that the Attorney General has stated that she will seek to have any litigation not approved by her dismissed immediately by the court.”