Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s secret is out, just as House Republicans are gearing up to scrutinize the Democrat for weaponizing her office for political purposes.

In a Sunday column for the Detroit Free Press, Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter M.L. Elrick exposed a reality about the AG’s office that few Michiganders are likely aware of: “They’re recording you.”

While Nessel’s office contends that recording calls with the media and investigative sources is “standard operating procedure,” Elrick’s three decades of reporting experience and multiple criminal justice experts he spoke with suggest otherwise.

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“That can have a chilling effect, 100%,” Michael Bullotta, a prosecutor in former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s corruption case, told Elrick. “People don’t like to be recorded … Especially if they don’t know they’re being recorded.”

Elrick first learned about the AG’s secret recordings when covering Nessel’s prosecution of 16 Republicans who backed President Donald Trump in 2020, when his conversation with an investigator was included in discovery documents the AG presented in court.

“Learning that I had somehow become part of the case – without providing any information – was more revelation than discovery,” Elrick wrote. “Still, I was prepared to chalk it up to experience.”

Then the issue reared its head again last week, as Elrick covered the preliminary examination for former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, who is accused by Nessel of misusing political, nonprofit and taxpayer funds.

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During the proceedings, Chatfield attorney Mary Chartier wanted to know why AG special agent Robert Menard did not record interviews with a key witness.

According to Elrick:

… I almost fell out of my chair when Menard testified that he secretly recorded a conversation with Detroit News Political Editor Chad Livengood.

“I was not consciously, secretly recording him,” Menard said. “It’s just how I did it.”

Chartier wasn’t buying it, and asked Menard whether he was afraid Livengood would not have spoken to him if he knew he was being recorded.

“That’s what I was afraid of, yes,” Menard testified.

“Were there other interviews with other journalists who were not recorded?” Chartier responded.

“No,” Menard said.

It’s unclear whether Menard did not secretly record other reporters, or whether Menard only recorded Livengood, but either way the AG’s office isn’t interested in clarifying.

“This is standard operating procedure for the Department’s investigators,” Kimberly Bush, Nessel’s director for the Office of Public Information and Education, wrote in an email to Elrick that ignored his request for the agency’s guidelines on secret recordings.

Elrick repeatedly attempted to speak with someone directly at the AG’s office about the practice, and instead received an email from AG Press Secretary Danny Wimmer that made it clear that wasn’t going to happen.

“Recording phone calls conducted during the course of an investigation is a standard investigative practice not unique to our agency, investigators, or office,” Wimmer wrote. “Investigators from all agencies should be expected to document investigative efforts; ours do so and this does not present any ethical concerns known to our office.”

Wimmer argued “participants in investigations” should expect to be secretly recorded “for the purposes of maintaining a record of potential evidence.”

“I wish I could say I was surprised that the AG’s Office, which was eager not only to speak with me, but to record our conversation, refused to speak with me when I was the one with the questions,” Elrick wrote.

David Carter, director of MSU College of Criminal Justice’s Intelligence Program, told Elrick experts recommend informing people they’re being recorded, and if agents record one interview, they should record them all.

“I see nothing that would hinder any investigation if you tell a person that they’re going to be recorded,” he said.

Bullota, a Nessel critic serving as a defense attorney in the Trump electors case, agreed that recording conversations with folks the AG is relying on to build a case “doesn’t build trust.”

“It destroys trust,” he said.

Republicans who gained control of the Michigan House in January have also cited trust issues with Nessel in a promise to more closely scrutinize the Democrat’s practices and expenses.

“Time after time after time, this attorney general is using lawfare to go after innocent people in Michigan and losing,” House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Twp., said when he announced coming oversight in December. “Look at how that destroys people’s lives being tied up for years in criminal litigation, just because you’re Republican and the attorney general has a political agenda against you.”

Nessel’s “office is out of control, so there’s a lot of changes we’re going to have to make to her budget to sop her from going after innocent Michiganders time after time after time,” Hall said, citing multiple cases as examples. “There will be oversight hearings, trying to get her to justify all these radical things she’s doing.”

Hall has since followed through with an expansive oversight committee, granted subpoena powers, and a subcommittee on the weaponization of government that’s expected to get to work this week.

The latter is chaired by Rep. Angela Rigas, R-Caledonia, who ran for office after she was targeted by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration for defying the governor’s pandemic edicts.

“Accountability begins right now,” Rigas said last week when she unveiled a revamped MIOversight.com, which encourages “all those who have been victimized by government tyranny or have information pertaining to the subcommittee’s investigations to please reach out.”

“With your help, we’re going to get answers and bring the truth to light,” she said.