Get an insider’s look into what’s happening in and around the halls of power with expert reporting, analysis and insight from the editors and reporters of Montana Free Press. Sign up to get the free Capitolized newsletter delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign up January 8, 2026 Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s 41-count professional misconduct saga was laid to rest Dec. 31 in the final work hours of the final day of the fifth year since anonymous complaints triggered a high-stakes attorney discipline proceeding by accusing him of defying a Montana Supreme Court order and disparaging the system of justice. The New Year’s Eve ruling was greeted by a flood of prepared statements from Republican elected officials and Knudsen himself, some issued minutes before the 149-page state supreme court order on the matter was posted online for public consumption.  A judicial panel technically dismissed the case but wrote that some of the misconduct charges were justified — in effect declining to deliver punishment beyond stern words. Knudsen and his fellow Republican officials were quick to cite that as validation that the state’s top attorney had done nothing wrong while defending the 2021 Legislature after it used its limited subpoena powers to seize a large volume of emails from the judicial branch. Legislators had learned the state’s judicial association had done internal polling on whether to take a position on proposed legislation concerning the courts. The Supreme Court justices demanded the files be returned, in part because some of the emails caught up in the drag net included confidential information about children involved in active court cases. As the state’s only appeals court, the Supreme Court hears a lot of divorce and child custody cases. For several months, Knudsen failed to comply with the court order to return the emails. His office also accused the supreme court of bias in court filings. Both actions violated the code of conduct for Montana attorneys, justices ruled last month. Knudsen’s defenders as the ruling was issued included the Legislature’s top Republican leaders. Speaker of the House Brandon Ler, R-Savage, for example, called the misconduct case a politically motivated affair that was “never about the law.” State Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, saw things similarly. “We must draw a bright line for the public between true ethical violations in government and manufactured controversies like the Office of Disciplinary Counsel and Commission on Practice’s shameful political persecution of Austin Knudsen,” he said. For his part, Knudsen called the charges against him “frivolous” in a statement issued Dec 31. Not everyone in the state’s legal community agreed. Billings attorney Doug James, for example, told Capitolized this week that the Supreme Court panel’s unanimous decision that some of Knudsen’s actions did in fact constitute unethical misconduct will take a toll on his reputation. “It’s pretty hard to claim that as a victory for any attorney, I mean that that is just incomprehensible,” said James, whose grandfather was a Montana attorney general and lieutenant governor. “Your reputation is everything and your relationships are everything.” In an opinion piece published by several newspapers in Montana and North Dakota this week, James suggested that “Knudsen’s defense throughout the case was that ethical rules simply didn’t apply to him.”  “This is roughly equivalent to insisting gravity is optional if you really believe in yourself,” James also wrote. The professional misconduct allegations against Knudsen were prosecuted by the Office of Disciplinary Conduct, which brought the case in 2023, two years after the blowup between the Legislature and the state Supreme Court. The ODC’s case was heard by the Commission on Practice in October 2024, as Knudsen was making his ultimately successful bid for reelection to a second term as attorney general. The week before the election, the Commission recommended to the state Supreme Court that Knudsen be suspended from legal practice for 90 days. Because the attorney general is required to be a licensed attorney, that raised questions about whether Knudsen could remain Attorney General during a suspension. Every remaining member of the Supreme Court seated during the 2021 dispute with the Legislature sought recusal, which left the review of the charges and 90-day suspension to the newly elected Chief Justice Corey Swanson and Katherine Bidegaray. District court judges were empaneled to fill in for the other five justices. While dismissing the case over due process issues, the court concluded unanimously that Knudsen ignored court orders and allowed the attorneys in his office to do the same. The panel also made a point that the attorney general’s elected office doesn’t shield him from being disciplined like other attorneys — but disregarded the recommended 90-day suspension.  District Court Judge Paul Sullivan, while concurring with the majority, authored a separate opinion, writing that “the ability to impose discipline is independent of the wisdom of doing so.” Bidegaray, however, wrote in her own separate opinion that she would have gone further than her colleagues, suspending Knudsen from legal practice for 30 days. She also pushed back on the notion that the case was political persecution. “This case places before us not a political dispute, but a question central to the rule of law: whether an attorney—particularly the Attorney General and State’s chief law-enforcement officer—may disregard a lawful order of this Court and allow his subordinates to do so without professional consequence,” Bidegaray wrote. —Tom Lutey The post Lawfare vindication for AG Knudsen? appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less