During a debate Wednesday evening between the Democratic candidates for Vermont attorney general, both candidates agreed on broad swaths of left-of-center policy.
But while Charity Clark and Rory Thibault rarely evoked him by name, recently resigned Attorney General TJ Donovan loomed over the night, with much of the debate — expressly or implied — amounting to a defense or critique of the status quo, and therefore his record.
Clark, who’s spent the last seven years as an assistant attorney general in Donovan’s office, including the last four as chief of staff, frequently advocated for continuations or expansions of efforts already in place. On reforms related to mental health and criminal justice, for example, she championed expanded diversion and restorative justice.
Thibault, the Washington County state’s attorney since 2018, suggested tweaks or entirely new proposals — advocating for stricter statewide ethics laws and the creation of a new facility for people in state custody with significant mental health needs.
The two squared off in the virtual debate hosted by VTDigger.
Eye to eye
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federally protected abortion access, drew the candidates’ condemnation. Both candidates agreed that reproductive freedoms were the most important issue they planned to advocate for if elected.
“A fundamental right was taken from us,” Clark said.
Both she and Thibault vowed to keep Vermont a haven for abortion rights, and to prevent the state from participating in abortion-related prosecutions in other states.
If elected, Thibault said he would protect Vermonters from “a radicalized Supreme Court and right-wing extremism” that threatens to take away further freedoms.
On climate change, Clark and Thibault agreed that the attorney general needs to hold the state accountable to aggressively combat global warming, whether that means working with the Legislature to explain the consequences of policy decisions, or defending environmental policies in the governor’s office.
“My real concern is that we’re already behind the curve on where we need to be,” Thibault said.
Space to disagree
Asked about police accountability, the divides between Clark and Thibault grew starker.
Regarding Vermont’s process to investigate police use-of-force incidents, Clark said “it’s a really difficult issue.”
“But I think for now, it’s working in terms of the process of the review,” she said, standing behind the collaborative approach taken in the last year between the Attorney General’s Office and state’s attorneys offices.
“I disagree. I don’t think the system is working,” Thibault said. “I don’t think Vermonters have confidence in how our law enforcement or prosecutorial agencies are responding to the review of the officer involved shootings.”
He said he hoped to shorten the time it took for the attorney general to review police-related cases from the six- to nine-month timeline past attorneys general have adopted down to two or three months, which he said state’s attorneys have achieved.
Thibault also said he hoped to create a system by which the attorney general could recommend the decertification of police officers.
Asked about “Brady” or “Giglio” letters — written by prosecutors to outline credibility issues with law enforcement officers — Thibault advocated for a publicly accessible statewide list. His is the only prosecutorial office with a “thorough and complete policy on how to handle” Brady letters, he said, chastising past attorneys general for not following suit.
Legislation that would have had the state form a central repository for Brady letters was watered down last session to form a study on the issue instead. Last month, the ACLU launched a public database tracking the letters, a move they said was inspired by VTDigger’s Tarnished Badge investigative series.
Clark, at first sidestepping the question, said she would consider creating a statewide database of the letters if elected.
Later in the debate, Clark also added that she would not support releasing full legal memoranda revealing the conclusions of investigations into officer-involved shootings, maintaining the state’s current practice.
The division opened up further disagreements between the candidates on matters of government transparency. Asked how the Attorney General’s Office could be considered transparent when it has for years denied releasing documents related to the EB-5 scandal — the largest fraud in state history — Clark defended her bosses’ decisions.
“As I said, I believe firmly in transparency and I think it’s incredibly important,” she said. But in this case, she said, attorney-client privilege prevented the release of documents. There is a plan in place to release more information at the conclusion of civil litigation, she added.
On the offensive, Thibault called it “disappointing” that Vermonters had learned more about EB-5 from journalists and federal court filings than the Attorney General’s Office. He said he supports the creation of a chief information officer within the office to better create a culture of transparency.
Both candidates highlighted the need for increased investment in mental health care. Clark pointed to the human services division within the Attorney General’s Office, which works with the Department of Mental Health, as “incredibly important work” already underway.
Thibault underscored a contrast between him and Clark by declaring mental health a “systems crisis” in Vermont. Advocating for a “forensic unit” — a psychiatric hospital or ward for people in state custody — he said that the current infrastructure is ill equipped to handle people at the intersection of the justice and mental health systems.
On the matter of ethics, Donovan became the debate’s central focus. Last month, he left office for a job at the video game company Roblox, a position that involves lobbying state policymakers.
Clark found no fault in Donovan’s actions. “We have ethical rules in place right now. And I think that they’re working and I wouldn’t change them at this moment,” she said.
This year, Vermont adopted a statewide ethics code for the first time, leaving a group of only five states never to have done so. According to Thibault, those rules do not go far enough in preventing elected officials from immediately becoming lobbyists.
“I know that my younger son would’ve thought it would be much cooler if I was going to work at Roblox,” he joked, “but I think there should be broad ethics restrictions for all state government employees leaving.”
