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 July 23, 2026 Before a clerical error threw the official misconduct case against Jason Ellsworth into mistrial, and before the former state Senate president shook his head in disagreement as jurors proclaimed his guilt, the Hamilton Republican was pinned down in a brutal cross-examination, having decided to testify at his own trial. It wasn’t going well. Ellsworth, accused of awarding $170,000 worth of government work to a friend in a manner that avoided competitive bidding and prior review by state experts, insisted repeatedly on the stand that the contracts weren’t in fact contracts. “I would not define those as contracts,” Ellsworth said. They were, he clarified, “proposals.”  Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Robles wasn’t letting Ellsworth off the hook. The state’s case relied on jurors understanding that the agreements signed by Ellsworth were contracts, effective upon signing and paid in full before, not after, the work was completed. The state prosecutor then displayed the agreements on a large flat-screen television beside the jury box. At the top of each document, in all-capital lettering, was the word “contract.” Ellsworth’s signature was at the bottom. “So not a proposal,” Robles said. “It was immediately effective and it was labeled a contract.”  Ellsworth had argued that what mattered were later versions of the documents, corrected by state experts, though those same state experts testified that they had been tasked with salvaging a sticky situation created by Ellsworth’s signing of the agreements before they’d been reviewed by state procurement experts. Misty Ann Giles, director of the Department of Administration, testified that correcting the agreements was akin to “putting lipstick on a pig.”  Pointing at the screen, Robles asked jurors to decide whether they believed Ellsworth or their eyes. After four hours of deliberations on Tuesday, the nine women and three men of the jury chose the latter. Martin Judnich, a defense lawyer for Sen. Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, reacts during testimony on July 15, 2026, at the Lewis and Clark County Courthouse. Testifying on one’s own behalf in a criminal trial is always risky, said Constance Van Kley, a University of Montana law school professor.  “It can be really damaging to a defendant,” Van Kley told Capitolized. “Even when someone has a strong claim of innocence, testifying can be dangerous because it allows the prosecution to draw out any discrepancy in prior statements, any uncertainties. And those become evidence.” Conversely, jurors are instructed not to infer guilt just because a defendant doesn’t testify, she said. But case studies suggest that jurors tend to question the innocence of a silent defendant nonetheless.  Ellsworth emerged from a north side exit of the Lewis and Clark County Courthouse after his cross-examination on Tuesday and headed for an un-trafficked section of sidewalk that did duty as a smokers’ lounge.  The Hamilton Republican, known for vaping around the Capitol, nodded to reporters as he passed by, then produced a pack of real cigarettes from his coat pocket, lit up and took a deep drag. Official misconduct, a misdemeanor, comes with a maximum sentence of six months in jail, a $500 fine, or both. Prosecutors argued that Ellsworth broke the law by leveraging his position of power to gain advantage for someone else, and by not following the state’s contracting process. What’s next? Judge Christopher Abbott had to throw out the guilty verdict against Ellsworth after learning that the file of exhibits given to jurors for deliberations included material that wasn’t part of the trial. The contaminating details involved scheduling issues regarding a potential witness for the state who, in the end, was never called to testify. The state gets another chance to prosecute Ellsworth. A trial date is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 14. Were that trial to span 10 days, like the one that just ended, it would finish right before Christmas, and just days before the end of Ellsworth’s four-year Senate term. One of the penalties for official misconduct is forfeiture of office. At a new trial, Ellsworth would once again decide whether testifying in his own defense is the right move. His testimony from July 21 would be inadmissible. —Tom Lutey Progressive Vet Goes MIA As Progressive Vet PAC, the biggest spender in Montana’s Democratic primary election, exited Montana politics at the end of June, it declared that its next stop was Kansas. Montana’s U.S. Senate race was unwinnable for Bankhead, the PAC said in a press release. It had spent $3.3 million in the Montana primary, mostly promoting Bankhead, but also opposing her fellow Democrat, Reilly Neill.  Noah Taylor, one of 11 Democrats on the ballot in Kansas, was a more promising prospect, according to Progressive Vet, which has now scrubbed all Montana references from its website. And yet. With the Kansas primary looming on Aug. 4, Progressive Vet has spent nothing on Taylor’s race, according to federal campaign reports. Taylor, like Bankhead, is poorly funded. He had less than $11,000 in the bank at the end of June, half of Bankhead’s purse.  —Tom Lutey Ravalli Republicans Signal Lawsuit Support Against GOP Bylaws Republican county central committees suing the state party over new bylaws gained a new ally in mid-July when the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee endorsed the lawsuit in a sign of support. Hamilton Republican Tony Hudson told Capitolized the Ravalli County Central Committee voted 18-14 to support the efforts of Republican plaintiffs in Yellowstone and Chouteau counties. In a Facebook post after the vote, state Sen. Theresa Manzella, who voted against the endorsement, called the committee proceedings a “shitshow” and said the court has no right to impose on the party’s new bylaws. According to Manzella, four of the committee members who voted for the new bylaws at the party’s June platform convention have now chosen to side with the suing county committees instead of the state party.  At issue are bylaws passed at the GOP platform convention in June that require from party members and elected Republicans an “affirmation of support” for the state party organization and allow the party to rescind membership for “conduct deemed inconsistent with party purposes,” as determined by executive party officers. Under the new bylaws, members can also be expelled for failure to pay newly required annual party dues. In court, the suing parties, which include county central committees, a state legislator and county precinct officers, say the required “affirmation of support” is a loyalty pledge that violates the state Constitution, which says the only oath elected officials can swear is an oath of office. A restraining order has been issued that prevents enactment of the parts of the bylaws challenged in the lawsuit. —Tom Lutey Sheehy on Iran There have been multiple votes in Congress to use the War Powers Act to stop the U.S. war with Iran. Each member of Montana’s congressional delegation, which includes three veterans of wars in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, has opposed all four attempts. The latest vote, in the Senate on Thursday, prompted a fiery speech from Republican Tim Sheehy, who at the start of the war dubbed “Operation Epic Fury” called the conflict a “righteous endeavor.”  “They want all of you dead. They want all of us dead. They don’t want us to disappear with the snap of a finger. They want us to be raped, burned alive, and cut into pieces. Watch the video from October 7 [2023, the date of the Hamas attack on Israeli concertgoers]. That’s what they want to happen, from Maine to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami. They want this country turned into a burning husk of its former self, and you don’t have to theorize that. That’s what they do. From the 1983 barracks bombing, where 280 Marines were vaporized in the morning, from USS Cole and Achille Lauro to every terrorist attack, from the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas. These are not humanitarian freedom organizations. They are death-dealing cults, and they want all of us to die brutal deaths.” —Tom Lutey The post Jason Ellsworth’s big do-over appeared first on Montana Free Press. ...read more read less