LG Earle-Sears Substantially Amends 2025 SOEI Filing, Invites Ethics Lawsuit
After last week's article, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears amended her 2025 Statement of Economic Interests to add trips to Israel and other destinations.
Last week I reported on House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott (D), Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears’ (R) trips to Israel as revealed at the recent meeting of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board.
Since then, I’ve submitted FOIA requests to the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council, Miyares, and Earle-Sears to further explore these trips to Israel. And, as readers may remember, I ended my piece last week with a call for vigilance:
As I await [LG Earle-Sears’] response — and those of Miyares and the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Council — keep your eyes on her 2025 SOEI on the online portal, and watch for any amendments that reveal who actually paid for her trip to Israel.
LG Earle-Sears Amends Her 2025 Statement of Economic Interests
Yesterday, at 10:56:47 AM, Earle-Sears submitted an amended 2025 Statement of Economic Interests to the Virginia Conflict of Interest and Ethics Advisory Board.
Note the form says, as it did when she originally submitted her (unamended) 2025 SOEI filing on February 5, 2025, that “Any filer who knowingly and intentionally makes a false statement of a material fact on the Statement of Economic Interests is guilty of a Class 5 felony.”
As I reported, on Schedule F of her original 2025 SOEI, Earle-Sears checked the “No” option on the question of whether she’d received “any lodging, transportation, money, or other thing of value with a combined value exceeding $100 during the prior calendar year” related to meetings, conferences, events, and other such occasions.
But on her amended form, Schedule F now includes seven different entries previously undisclosed on these ethics filings, and the “Yes” option is checked.
Included in this list is the trip to Israel that I questioned in my original article, and we now know it was paid for by Combat Antisemitism Movement at a value of $6,000.
Litigation Next Week
The Virginia State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act governs these ethics filing requirements as it pertains to the lieutenant governor. I believe her amended filing, in apparent response to my reporting, is tantamount to a concession that the original filing was in violation of the law — that is, it failed to disclose seven different trips and related details.
But when it comes to enforcing the Act, Va. Code § 2.2-3126(A) is crystal clear: “The provisions of this chapter relating to an officer or employee serving at the state level of government shall be enforced by the Attorney General.”
Va. Code § 2.2-3126(A)(1) and Va. Code § 2.2-3126(A)(2) describe what Miyares could do:
1. He shall advise the agencies of state government and officers and employees serving at the state level of government on appropriate procedures for complying with the requirements of this chapter. He may review any disclosure statements, without notice to the affected person, for the purpose of determining satisfactory compliance, and shall investigate matters that come to his attention reflecting possible violations of the provisions of this chapter by officers and employees serving at the state level of government;
2. If he determines that there is a reasonable basis to conclude that any officer or employee serving at the state level of government has knowingly violated any provision of this chapter, he shall designate an attorney for the Commonwealth who shall have complete and independent discretion in the prosecution of such officer or employee;
Miyares is running for reelection on the same GOP statewide ticket as Earle-Sears, which presents an obvious conflict. It also suggests the worst-case possibility for Virginians who care about basic compliance with our lax ethics laws: that Miyares does nothing at all.
The General Assembly, however, did add an important line to the enforcement language in Va. Code § 2.2-3126(A)(3):
Irrespective of whether an opinion of the Attorney General has been requested and rendered, any person has the right to seek a declaratory judgment or other judicial relief as provided by law.
I drafted a 13-page lawsuit against Earle-Sears on this precise question yesterday, but I wasn’t sure who had actually paid for her Israel trip and how much it had cost. What I didn’t expect was for Earle-Sears to reveal six additional trips previously undisclosed on her SOEI later in the day.
I suspect, had I not reported on this issue in the first place, Earle-Sears’ 2025 SOEI filing may never have been amended.
And since it’s not reasonable to expect Miyares to properly handle this situation, I’ll file a complaint in Richmond Circuit Court next week, represent myself, and ask a judge to declare that Earle-Sears violated the law.
After all, the General Assembly gave “any person” that right, a right whose assertion here may represent the difference between a barebones ethics regime — and complete surrender to noncompliance.