Lujan Grisham has taxpayer-funded staff using encrypted messaging apps

Photo credit: CNN

It’s not just the NM state agency charged with child welfare using encrypted apps on their government-issued cell phones to avoid a paper trail, it’s senior members of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s staff as well.

What’s worse? Lujan Grisham’s spokesman denied anyone in the Governor’s office ever used encrypted apps on their cell phones just a couple of weeks ago…

In case you missed it…

Lujan Grisham’s staffers have private messaging apps on work cellphones
Santa Fe New Mexican
Daniel J. Chacon
July 7, 2021
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/lujan-grisham-s-staffers-have-private-messaging-apps-on-work-cellphones/article_3f5f13ba-df3a-11eb-9362-eba81feea079.html

Members of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s staff, including her communications director, have private messaging apps on their government-issued cellphones that use end-to-end encryption designed to keep conversations secret.

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The revelation that employees in the Governor’s Office have private messaging apps on their taxpayer-funded cellphones comes after the office of Attorney General Hector Balderas launched an investigation into use of the Signal app, another encrypted messaging service, by the Children, Youth and Families Department.

Searchlight New Mexico reported the child welfare agency used the app to discuss a wide range of official business over the past year and that employees were routinely deleting encrypted messages, which might have violated New Mexico’s public records laws. Two employees who claim they were fired for raising concerns about the deletion of messages have since filed a lawsuit against the agency under the New Mexico Whistlebower Protection Act.

Matt Nerzig, another spokesman for Lujan Grisham, was asked in late April if any other state government agency, aside from CYFD, used the Signal app. He responded in an email: “no.”

But it turns out CYFD employees are not the only state government workers who have private messaging apps on their phones.

A review of cellphone numbers issued to employees in the Governor’s Office showed at least four staffers — Stelnicki; Sackett; Matt Ruybal, who serves as constituent relations director; and Children’s Cabinet Director Mariana Padilla — have such apps. Stelnicki, Sackett and Ruybal have WhatsApp, and Padilla has Signal.

Padilla did not return multiple messages seeking comment.

“I am on the road right now. Could I schedule … another time to talk?” Padilla said during a brief telephone interview Tuesday.

Sackett wrote in an email Wednesday she would answer questions on behalf of Padilla, who wields considerable influence with the governor, according to Searchlight, which reported Padilla was in charge of Lujan Grisham’s New Mexico congressional office for six years when Lujan Grisham served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Sackett did not respond when asked why Padilla didn’t inform the governor of its use or why Padilla still appears as an active user.

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Though Sackett wrote that she, Stelnicki and Ruybal don’t use the app, the messaging service shows all three of their numbers as active.

WhatsApp also shows Brian Blalock, Cabinet secretary of the Children, Youth and Families Department, continues to have an active account. The department stopped using the app April 29.