Sears has repeatedly refused to respond to FOIA requests dealing with her financial disclosures

VIRGINIA – As Winsome Earle-Sears comes under fire for refusing to disclose secret flights, new reporting from VPM News details that Sears has refused to respond to FOIA requests for additional information on what she’s doing in her taxpayer-funded job day-to-day. VPM News reported: 

“VPM News filed a follow-up FOIA, clarifying and broadening the request, but the Office of the Lieutenant Governor did not respond in the time period required by Virginia law: an initial five business days, with the ability to invoke a seven-day extension (which Earle-Sears' office did).

After a follow-up email, the office stood by its withholding of the records, and noted that it does not maintain records for Earle-Sears' roles as president of the state Senate or on boards and commissions.”
 
“Virginians deserve to know exactly what their elected leaders are doing in their roles. The fact that Winsome Earle-Sears refuses to tell Virginians what she does in her tax-payer funded job and violates ethics rules by not disclosing who is paying for secret flights is alarming and makes clear that she would leave Virginians in the dark as Governor,” said DPVA Spokesperson Maggie Amjad.
 
What Virginians are reading about Sears withholding information: 

VPM News: Earle-Sears touts her role in Youngkin policy wins — but is light on details

• The lieutenant governor's office has withheld many records as "working papers."
• VPM News also filed a FOIA request with the lieutenant governor's office for her schedule, a record that is required to be maintained and permanently held. In response, the office produced a largely-blank, 297-page PDF that excluded "approximately 297 records," citing the exemption covering "confidential correspondence and working papers of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor."
• The released records also did not include events that Earle-Sears' office had previously released to the public.
• VPM News filed a follow-up FOIA, clarifying and broadening the request, but the Office of the Lieutenant Governor did not respond in the time period required by Virginia law: an initial five business days, with the ability to invoke a seven-day extension (which Earle-Sears' office did).
• After a follow-up email, the office stood by its withholding of the records, and noted that it does not maintain records for Earle-Sears' roles as president of the state Senate or on boards and commissions. 
• The Earle-Sears campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

WVTF: New questions have emerged about Earle-Sears' trips

• In 2024, Republican Lieutennt Governor Winsome Earle-Sears took a trip to Israel financed by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. That trip was not initially disclosed to the public, although Earle-Sears later amended her disclosure form. Delegate Marcus Simon is a Democrat from Fairfax County who says he’s concerneli style="padding-bottom: 18px;"Earle-Sears is accepting trips without disclosing them again.
• "As of this moment, she is not compliant with the law – either the disclosure law reporting who paid for it or the FOIA requests that require a five-day response," Simon says. "I think it's been 10 and 13 days, and so far all we've heard is, ‘We're still figuring it out.’"
• "We're still trying to figure it out" is the quote the Earle-Sears campaign gave to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is reporting about new questions surrounding who is paying for her travel expenses.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Another free flight? Earle-Sears can't say

• Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears‘ office and campaign can’t say whether she took a free flight in 2023 from a donor whose business was regulated by the state.
• Asked if Earle-Sears made a free trip in 2023 between her home in Winchester and a Republican Party event in Abingdon without disclosing it as required on an ethics filing, her director of communications, David Crane, said: “We’re still trying to figure it out.”
• Meanwhile, in response to two Freedom of Information Act requests for records about the flight, one filed 15 days ago and the other 12 days ago, Crane offered an initial response Monday afternoon that Earle-Sears’ staff was still working on it.
• State officials are required to respond within five working days even if to say there aren’t any records or that they need more time to find them.
• Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act — along with the state election and ethics law requirements to report gifts, free travel and donations — are Virginia’s basic way to ensure a measure of accountability that public officials’ actions are not swayed by gifts or payments.
• “If the trip in question was in the transaction of public business and there were records of allowances or reimbursements for the travel expenses, generally those would be subject to FOIA,” said Alan Gernhardt, executive director of the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council.
• “Actions as a political candidate are generally subject to election and ethics laws, but might not be public records under FOIA because they concern political business as a candidate rather than public business as a sitting official,” he said. But, he added, Earle-Sears’ staff still had to respond by now to FOIA requests, one dated July 28 and the other July 31.