Confused myself, I sat down with Julie and asked her about the situation. She hemmed and hawed, apologized, and then said she’d make everything clear to her staff. I thought we were done, but the same thing happened a few weeks later, and my assistant told me Julie was still actively telling her team to ignore my directions.

The House Ethics Committee confirmed it reviewing a complaint against U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and Brandon Phillips, his chief of staff.

The state’s ethics panel has closed its investigation into former state Sen. Jeff Klein without substantiating allegations that he forcibly kissed a staffer a decade ago.

The State Ethics Committee said former state Rep. Adam Morgan accepted and failed to report over $4,000 in services from RJ May’s consulting firm.

But after losing his seat, Klein sued JCOPE in an attempt to scuttle its investigation; that legal battle ground on until 2023, when a judge allowed the probe to continue under the state’s new ethics panel, the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.

After more than two decades as the director of the Arkansas Ethics Commission, Graham Sloan plans to retire on Dec. 31.