Updated at 6:56 p.m.
The Vermont House committee investigating whether Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore should be impeached has formally dropped its inquiry.
The panel unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday morning that calls on Grismore to resign. However, it stops short of recommending that the full House advance further proceedings that could lead to him being removed from office.
In addition, the committee published a report Tuesday describing its work over the past year, which has taken place largely in sessions closed to the public and the press.
The report states that the committee had serious concerns with the embattled sheriff’s conduct, contending that he “is doing Franklin County a disservice by remaining in office.”
It points to the highly publicized August 2022 incident — and Grismore’s response since — in which he repeatedly kicked a handcuffed and shackled detainee. It also notes several instances in which Grismore, according to the committee, improperly paid himself his own retirement funds.
Yet despite their condemnation of those events, the committee members concluded that neither amounts to an impeachable offense, the report shows. That’s in large part, they wrote, because each episode occurred before Grismore was elected sheriff in November 2022. He previously held a dual role as both the department’s top deputy and its bookkeeper.
There is little legal precedent across the country for impeachment on such “pre-incumbency conduct,” the report states — a fact that committee leaders conceded earlier this year.
“In the long run, it is far better for democracy that it should endure the ills resulting from its unwise selections, than that some heroic recall remedy should be provided,” said Rep. Martin LaLonde, the South Burlington Democrat who chairs the impeachment panel, reading a quote from the report at Tuesday morning’s committee hearing.
In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Grismore said he had “mixed emotions” on the committee’s decision — he was glad to learn the news, but disappointed at how long it took the members to reach their conclusion. He added that he has no plans to step down.
“On behalf of the voters that elected me, it feels like they could get some sort of feeling of vindication through this process that their vote was appropriate,” he said.
Robert Kaplan, an attorney representing Grismore, also fired off a statement attributed to the sheriff Tuesday afternoon, which called the impeachment committee’s efforts “nothing more than a boondoggle” led by “a small cadre of elitist, super-voters in Montpelier.”
The committee’s decision appears to bring to an end a nearly yearlong investigation of Grismore that included testimony from 26 witnesses, 18 of whom spoke during executive sessions.
Among the witnesses who spoke publicly was Grismore himself, who has vociferously defended his actions and denied any wrongdoing.
Last fall, Grismore was stripped of his police officer certification by the Vermont Criminal Justice Council after it found that he violated the state’s policy governing officers’ use-of-force when he kicked the detainee.
Since then, he has been able to perform only the administrative duties of his office — and the committee’s report makes clear that its members believe this means he cannot serve as an effective sheriff.
After speaking with other employees of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, the committee found no evidence that Grismore has continued to use force improperly, or that he has instructed other deputies on how to use force, the report said.
Meanwhile, according to the report, the committee did find evidence that Grismore “acted contrary to the law” by writing himself four department checks totaling about $16,500 for retirement contributions that should have gone to the state employee retirement system, or VSERS, for Grismore’s own retirement.
The sheriff’s office was required to pay the state more than $20,000 in January 2023 for unpaid contributions to Grismore’s retirement account, the committee found, but it could not determine whether Grismore himself had reimbursed the office for that money. Grismore said in an interview that, as he understands it, he was never required to pay that money back.
Grismore has testified to the committee that he wrote the checks between December 2021 and July 2022 as a “test mechanism” for whether he could remove the department from the state retirement system. He maintained that he had broad approval to do so from his then-supervisor, former Franklin County Sheriff Roger Langevin.
But the committee could not determine whether Grismore actually had such approval. Langevin, the report states, testified that while he signed off on at least two documents related to Grismore’s retirement contributions, the former sheriff “signed them without knowing what they meant” and later said Grismore had, in short, deceived him.
Ultimately, “although this is a close case, the Committee believes there is insufficient evidence at this time that Mr. Grismore lacked permission to take the action of paying himself the retirement contributions,” committee members wrote.
The lawmakers added that they could reopen their investigation if a Vermont State Police inquiry into broad allegations that Grismore mishandled department finances uncovers additional evidence that “implicates” the sheriff.
In the resolution adopted Tuesday, the committee also called on the Senate to approve a constitutional amendment that would set “reasonable qualifications for the office of Sheriff, such as holding a valid Vermont law enforcement officer certification.”
It’s a clear shot at that chamber’s failure earlier this year to advance Proposal 1, which would have amended the state constitution to allow the Legislature to set qualifications and removal procedures for elected county officers. Momentum on the amendment died amid a lobbying push against it by several of the sheriffs themselves.
Impeachment — a political process rather than a judicial one — represents the state’s only recourse for removing a sheriff from office while county residents wait for their quadrennial chance to vote.
“This process has highlighted a concerning gap in our laws, and without action by the Senate, we risk being unable to hold individuals accountable in the future,” said House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, in a statement Tuesday.
“While the report lays out a list of concerning actions that are completely unacceptable of an elected official, it does not meet the high bar for impeachment,” she said.
The committee’s resolution still needs to be approved by the full House, lawmakers said on Tuesday.
