# Auditor's Multi-Official Capitol Tour (April 14-15, 2025) The April 14-15, 2025 trip Lawrence Berman and Brad Young of the Development Corporation for Israel made to Little Rock was not, as previous wiki documentation suggested based on the ATRS Staff Emails batch, a single meeting with Mark White at ATRS. The Spadoni custodian production reveals it was a comprehensive two-day Capitol tour with eight scheduled meetings spanning the executive and legislative branches. The Auditor's office, through Wendy Spadoni and Jason Brady, orchestrated the entire schedule. The companion concept page [[auditor-as-dci-channel]] addresses the channel function more generally; the present page addresses the specific scope of the April 2025 trip. ## The schedule Per Spadoni's 4/11/2025 1:52 PM email to Berman: **Monday, April 14, 2025** - 9:00 to 9:30 AM: Amy Fecher, APERS executive director - 9:45 to 10:15 AM: Speaker of the House Brian Evans and Rep. Les Warren (in the Speaker's Suite 350 office per Robin Voss's coordination) - Lunch: Auditor Dennis Milligan and Jason Brady (working lunch with Berman and Young) - 1:15 to 1:30 PM: Secretary Daryl Bassett, Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing **Tuesday, April 15, 2025** - 8:00 to 8:30 AM: Senator Bart Hester, President Pro Tempore of the Arkansas Senate - 10:00 to 10:30 AM: Mark White, Arkansas Teacher Retirement System - 11:30 to 12:00 PM: Treasurer John Thurston - Lunch (presumably with the Auditor's office hosts) - 2:00 to 2:30 PM: Secretary Jim Hudson, Department of Finance and Administration The eight Capitol meetings were all in the Auditor's office Room 230 except where noted (the Speaker meeting was in the Speaker's Suite 350). Spadoni and Brady coordinated the calendar; Milligan signed the formal meeting confirmations. ## Composition of the audience The eight meetings reach four functional categories of Arkansas state actors: 1. **Pension fund executive directors**: Amy Fecher (APERS), Mark White (ATRS). The two largest Arkansas state retirement systems. APERS subsequently authorized $25-50 million in Israel Bonds (per White's 5/22 Board preview); ATRS authorized $50 million in Resolution 2025-22 on 6/2/2025. 2. **Legislative leadership**: Speaker of the House Brian Evans (with Rep. Les Warren), President Pro Tempore of the Senate Bart Hester. The two presiding officers of the Arkansas General Assembly. The materials do not document what was discussed at these meetings; the legislative branch does not directly authorize pension fund investments, but the General Assembly enacts the statutory framework that governs them (Act 498, Act 937, the Investment Policy authority, the prudent investor rule). 3. **Constitutional and statutory state financial officers**: State Treasurer John Thurston. Thurston is the statutory ex officio member of the ATRS Investment Committee per BP1 Section XII; he also serves on the APERS Investment Committee per the parallel APERS structure (not yet ingested but per the seed-list). Thurston's 4/15 meeting with Berman occurred six weeks before he would consider the Israel Bonds proposal in his Investment Committee capacity at ATRS on 6/2. 4. **Cabinet secretaries**: Daryl Bassett (Labor and Licensing), Jim Hudson (Department of Finance and Administration). DFA is the central state finance agency; Hudson approved his meeting only after asking "Topic?" first per the 4/8 email. The substantive purpose of meeting these cabinet secretaries about a pension investment is not articulated in the documents. ## Brady's framing of the trip The 4/7/2025 letter Brady drafted for Milligan's signature to Sen. Dotson and Rep. Warren provides the framing the Auditor's office used to invite legislators to participate: "I worked with and have know Mr. Berman and Israel Bonds since my time in the State Treasury when the Legislature allowed me to purchase bonds of Israel. I know we both share a very deep love and respect for the State of Israel." Two framings combined. The first is personal: a long-standing relationship between Milligan and Berman dating from Milligan's State Treasurer years. The second is political-solidarity: "deep love and respect for the State of Israel." The investment decision-making framework (whether to purchase bonds, in what amount, on what fiduciary basis) is not articulated. The pecuniary standard required by Act 498 and BP4 Section D.3 does not appear in the framing. ## The Sanders meeting that did not happen The Spadoni production also documents that the Auditor's office attempted to schedule a meeting with Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders for the November 2024 Berman trip (Spadoni's 10/24/2024 outreach to Erica Freeman in the Governor's scheduling office). Freeman declined on 10/29/2024: "We do no currently have Governor Sanders scheduled to be in the Capitol on November 5." The April 2025 schedule does not show a Governor meeting. Whether the Auditor's office attempted to add Sanders to the April trip is not documented; the production contains no further Governor's-office correspondence. ## Investigative significance The eight scheduled meetings document that the Israel Bonds outreach in Arkansas was a coordinated political-channel campaign across multiple branches and offices, not a single pension-system investment proposal. The Auditor's office served as the orchestrator. The DCI representatives received scheduled time with both pension executive directors, both presiding officers of the legislature, the State Treasurer, and two cabinet secretaries within 48 hours. The Investment Committee implications are particularly load-bearing. Per BP1 Section XII the Investment Committee includes the Board Chair plus five Board appointees plus the State Treasurer plus the State Bank Commissioner. Of the eight scheduled meetings, two reached statutory ATRS Investment Committee participants: White (the Board's executive director who serves as secretary to the committee per BP3 Section I.B.2.c) and Thurston (the ex officio Treasurer member). Whether Berman or Young met with the State Bank Commissioner separately during the April trip or in any other documented period is not in this batch and is a follow-up FOIA target. The cabinet secretary meetings and legislative leadership meetings are harder to map to the eventual pension fund decision. They are political relationship-building, consistent with the SFOF national-network pattern documented at [[sfof-state-financial-officer-network]]. Whether Speaker Evans, President Pro Tempore Hester, or the cabinet secretaries took any subsequent action related to Israel Bonds policy or pension governance is not documented in this batch. ## The schedule was revised from an earlier batched-meeting structure The R2 Milligan production ([[auditor-foia-r2-milligan]]) captures a deleted Outlook calendar invite that documents at least one earlier scheduling configuration for the trip. Subject: "Meeting with Larry Berman, Dennis Milligan, Jason Brady and possibly Bart Hester." Location: "Auditor's Capitol Office; Room 230; Arkansas State Capitol." Start: Monday, April 14, 2025 9:00 AM. End: 9:30 AM. Organizer: Wendy Spadoni. Mandatory participants: "Jim Hudson; Dennis Milligan; DENNIS MILLIGAN; Jason Brady." This earlier configuration would have put four officials (Hudson, Milligan, Brady, possibly Hester) together with Berman in a single 30-minute slot. The final schedule disaggregated the meeting: Fecher took the 9:00 AM 4/14 slot, Hudson moved to 4/15 in the afternoon, and Hester was scheduled separately for 4/15 8:00 AM. The disaggregation decision more than doubled the number of meeting slots and brought the trip from approximately four configured slots to the eight scheduled meetings ultimately conducted. Milligan deleted the superseded invite from his Outlook calendar. The choice to disaggregate is a deliberate procedural decision. A batched 30-minute meeting with four officials gives each official three to seven minutes of direct DCI exposure. The disaggregated structure gives each official their own private meeting in their own venue with DCI representatives. The disaggregated structure also creates separately documentable meetings rather than a single aggregated record. The substantive consequence is that the political relationship-building work the trip performs is conducted bilaterally rather than as a group event. Whether the choice was driven by scheduling logistics (officials' availability) or by procedural choice (more individual exposure) is not addressable from the deleted invite alone. ## The Hudson meeting was at 3:00 PM, not 2:00 PM, and was at Auditor's Room 230 Milligan's actual Outlook calendar invite for the Hudson meeting (file "Meeting with Larry Berman, Secretary Jim Hudson, Dennis Milligan, Jason Brady.pdf") shows the meeting at 3:00-3:30 PM on Tuesday April 15, 2025, location "Auditor's Capitol Office; Room 230; Arkansas State Capitol." This differs from Spadoni's pre-trip 4/11 schedule sent to Berman, which placed the meeting at 2:00-2:30 PM. The Milligan calendar invite is the authoritative source for the actual meeting time and location, since it documents the meeting Milligan committed to attend. The schedule revision (from 2:00 PM in the Spadoni schedule to 3:00 PM in Milligan's calendar) is either a late-stage adjustment after Spadoni's 4/11 email or a misprint in one of the sources. The location revision (from Hudson's DFA offices to Auditor's Room 230) shifts the meeting venue back into the Auditor's-office host space, consistent with the broader pattern of Auditor's-office hosting for most of the tour. Wendy Spadoni is also documented as a mandatory participant of the Hudson meeting per the calendar invite, which the Spadoni-sent schedule did not specify. The corrected Hudson meeting time (3:00 PM 4/15 at Auditor's Room 230) means the actual tour timeline is: **Tuesday, April 15, 2025** - 8:00 to 8:30 AM: Senator Bart Hester - 10:00 to 10:30 AM: Mark White, ARTRS - 11:30 to 12:00 PM: Treasurer John Thurston - 3:00 to 3:30 PM: Secretary Jim Hudson, DFA (in Auditor's Capitol Office Room 230, with Spadoni attending) The earlier wiki documentation of "2:00 PM at DFA" is therefore superseded by this batch's calendar evidence. ## The November 5, 2024 Election Day trip: Treasury-coordination request documented The R2 residual sub-batches at [[auditor-foia-r2-residual]] expand the documented Capitol-tour pattern to include the November 5, 2024 Election Day Berman/Young Arkansas trip the wiki had previously only fragmentarily documented through the Brady R2 Berman/Borromeo emails. Three pieces of evidence in the residual sub-batches close the chronology. First, **the Brady-Burleson iMessage** dated Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 11:29 AM (JB to KB 2025-06-24.pdf) documents Brady's Treasury-coordination request to Treasury Deputy Kenneth Burleson: "The Auditor is asking is there anyway the Secretary could do a five minute hello / handshake and photo visit - and then if you and Bill could give him 30 minutes." "The Secretary" is Treasurer John Thurston; "Bill" is Treasury Chief Deputy Bill Huffman. The second message confirms Brady's scheduled meetings: "I have 10 with ATRS and 1:30 with apers." The Election Day trip scope therefore reached two pension systems (ATRS at 10 AM, APERS at 1:30 PM) plus an attempted Treasurer hello-handshake-photo plus a 30-minute Treasury Deputy meeting — a four-meeting day. Whether the Treasury meetings actually occurred is not knowable from this text; the requests are documented, the responses are not. Second, **Spadoni's undated spiral-planner page** (scan_Redacted - undated - note from Wendy.pdf) cross-confirms the Election Day schedule with the green sticky note "Larry Berman / Jason / Amy Fetcher APERS / Nov. 5th 1:30-2:30 / Thomas / Mark White ARTRS / Nov. 5th 10-11:00." The planner page is Spadoni's pre-trip scheduling work showing the same 10 AM ATRS and 1:30 PM APERS schedule documented in the Brady text. Third, **Brady's redacted yellow-legal-pad note** (scan_Redacted - undated note from jason.pdf) contains the legible fragments "10 ATRS / 1175 ootlms / 130 APERS / ? John Thurston 230 / 905" — documenting Brady's planning of a 2:30 PM (or 9:05 alternative) Thurston slot. The note also documents "SBF - Wed - 18," tying the Israel Bonds work to the State Board of Finance calendar context. The earlier-Capitol-tour parallel: the wiki's documented April 2025 trip eight-meeting schedule had its November 2024 antecedent in a four-meeting Election Day Berman trip Brady was orchestrating across Auditor's, ATRS, APERS, and Treasury offices. The Auditor's-office Capitol tour concept therefore is not specific to April 2025 — it is a documented operational pattern Brady runs whenever DCI senior leadership visits Arkansas. The 4/15/2025 Thurston-Berman Capitol office meeting documented in the wiki is therefore not the first Auditor-Treasury coordination on DCI; it is the second documented instance, with the first being Brady's 10/28/2024 Burleson outreach for the Election Day photo. The Brad Young handwritten thank-you card from December 2024 (per [[auditor-foia-r2-residual]] Sub-batch 3) explicitly thanks Milligan for "warm and wonderful hospitality during Larry and my trip to Little Rock" and "the meetings you helped arrange for us were Israel productive" — confirming the Election Day trip occurred (Young's "Larry and my trip" cannot refer to the April 2025 trip given the Christmas/New-Year card framing dates it to roughly December 2024). The card is documentary evidence that the Election Day trip happened, that meetings were held, and that Young considered them "Israel productive" with the expectation of leading to Israel Bonds sales. Which specific Treasury or pension meetings actually occurred on Election Day is still not knowable; the trip overall and its productive characterization are documented. ## What this batch does not establish The substantive content of any of the eight meetings. The materials document the schedule and the Auditor's-office orchestration but not what was said or what commitments were made. Whether the November 2024 originally-planned trip occurred. The October 23 Brady outreach proposed November dates; the Spadoni production includes the October 29 Sanders decline but no positive confirmations of any November 2024 meetings actually happening. Whether November meetings occurred and generated no email record, or did not happen, is unclear. The Auditor's office working lunch on 4/14 between Milligan, Brady, Berman, and Young. The schedule entry is "Lunch / Auditor Milligan and Jason Brady" with Berman and Young as the visitors. No documents in the batch address what was discussed at lunch. Any follow-up actions by Brian Evans, Bart Hester, Les Warren, Daryl Bassett, or Jim Hudson related to the Israel Bonds matter after the April 14-15 meetings. ## Evidence > [!evidence] Wendy Spadoni to Lawrence Berman, April 11, 2025 - 4.pdf p.2, 4/11/2025 1:52 PM > "Below is your schedule for Monday and Tuesday: Monday, April 14, 2025 / 9:00 - 9:30 Amy Fecher, APERS / 9:45 - 10:15 Speaker Brian Evans and Rep. Les Warren / Lunch Auditor Milligan and Jason Brady / 1:15-1:30 Sec. Darryl Bassett / Tuesday, April 15, 2025 / 8:00 - 8:30 Sen. Bart Hester, President Pro Tempore / 10:00 - 10:30 Mark White, ARTRS / 11:30 - 12:00 Treasurer John Thurston / Lunch / 2:00 - 2:30 Secretary Jim Hudson, Department of Finance and Administration" > [!evidence] Jason Brady drafting letter for Dennis Milligan signature, April 7, 2025 - 2.pdf p.1, 4/7/2025 > "I worked with and have know Mr. Berman and Israel Bonds since my time in the State Treasury when the Legislature allowed me to purchase bonds of Israel. I know we both share a very deep love and respect for the State of Israel." > [!evidence] Brady drafting letter for Milligan signature, April 7, 2025.pdf p.1, 4/7/2025 > "So far, I have a meeting set up for him with President Pro Temp/Sen. Hester sometime Monday morning (tbd) and State Treasurer Thurston Tuesday morning at 11:30. My office is working on a time with Speaker Evans (msp). I am also tring to set up follow up meetings with him with both executive directors of ATRS and APERS." > [!evidence] Wendy Spadoni to Erica Freeman, October 29, 2024.pdf p.1, 10/24/2024 > "Dennis Milligan, Auditor of State, would like to request a 5-minute cameo with the Governor on November 5th to introduce a gentleman with Israel Bonds." > [!evidence] Lawrence Berman to Wendy Spadoni, May 16, 2025.pdf p.2, 4/16/2025 > "extremely successful and fun trip thanks to all the efforts made by you, Jason and of course the Auditor." ## Cross-References [[dennis-milligan]] [[jason-brady]] [[wendy-spadoni]] Auditor's-office orchestrators [[lawrence-berman]] [[brad-young]] DCI representatives on the tour [[amy-fecher]] [[mark-white]] pension executive directors on the schedule [[john-thurston]] State Treasurer and statutory Investment Committee member [[brian-evans]] [[les-warren]] [[bart-hester]] legislative leadership on the schedule [[daryl-bassett]] [[jim-hudson]] cabinet secretaries on the schedule [[sarah-huckabee-sanders]] [[erica-freeman]] Governor's office (declined to schedule) [[robin-voss]] Speaker's executive administrator who coordinated the 4/14 slot [[auditor-as-dci-channel]] companion concept page on the channel function generally [[sfof-state-financial-officer-network]] companion concept page on the parallel SFOF political-network channel [[atrs-board-governance-structure]] concept page on the Investment Committee membership rules [[kenneth-burleson]] [[bill-huffman]] Treasury Deputies Brady requested for the November 5, 2024 Election Day Berman trip [[auditor-foia-r1-spadoni]] [[auditor-foia-r2-milligan]] [[auditor-foia-r2-residual]] source pages ## Treasury R1 7-7-25 production: independent confirmation of the 4/15/2025 Thurston meeting The Treasury R1 batch independently confirms the 4/15/2025 Berman-Thurston Capitol meeting via the Treasurer's-office scheduling correspondence, distinct from the Auditor's-office orchestration evidence. Sandra Blount (Executive Assistant to Treasurer Thurston) emailed Berman 4/2/2025 11:32 AM: > Good morning, Mr. Berman. > > I understand you will be in the Little Rock area on Tuesday, April 15th, and would like to meet with Treasurer Thurston. Would you be available at 11:30am on that day? Please let me know and I will add the meeting to the calendar. Berman accepted at 11:37 AM ("Please thank the Treasurer for making time for myself and my colleague Brad Young. We look forward to meeting you on Tuesday April 15th at 11:30") and Blount confirmed at 11:42 AM: > We will see you two gentlemen on the 15th. The meeting will be held in our conference room at the State Capitol, suite 220. The meeting venue is therefore Treasury's State Capitol conference room Suite 220, distinct from the Auditor's office Room 230 where Milligan's 4/11/2025 confirmation email had located it. The 11:30 AM time matches both the Spadoni pre-trip schedule and the Milligan Outlook calendar entry. The "two gentlemen" framing confirms Brad Young attended alongside Berman. The independent Treasurer's-office confirmation also documents that the meeting scheduling involved direct Berman-Blount correspondence ("I understand you will be in the Little Rock area") rather than full Auditor's-office routing. The Auditor's office (Spadoni-Brady) presumably informed Treasury of Berman's planned visit, but the specific scheduling occurred directly between Berman and Blount. This refines the wiki's prior framing of the Capitol tour as Auditor's-office-orchestrated: the orchestration is distributed, with each receiving office handling its own scheduling. The financial outcome of the 4/15/2025 Thurston meeting is documented end-to-end in the Treasury R1 batch through the operational pathway captured at [[state-treasurer-israel-bonds-operations]]: Berman-Huffman phone conversation setting the $55M target → 4/16/2025 Berman rate-sheet email to Pulley → 4/16/2025 Pulley order email → 4/22/2025 QIB Accredited Investor Letter transmission → 5/1/2025 wire and bond issuance → 5/5/2025 DCI Payment Validation Operations Approval. The Capitol tour's direct $20M outcome at the Treasury's-office stop is therefore documented through to DCI Operations Approval. [[treasury-foia-r1-7-7-25]] source page [[sandra-blount]] Treasury Executive Assistant who scheduled the 4/15 meeting [[state-treasurer-israel-bonds-operations]] companion concept page documenting the Thurston $20M operational pathway [[bill-huffman]] [[steve-pulley]] Treasury principals in the resulting purchase chain ## ASHERS production: Babbitt attended the 4/15 Hudson bilateral; documented downstream DFA-channel introduction to ASHERS The ASHERS production at [[ashers-foia-r1-3-27-26]] documents that [[andy-babbitt]] (DFA Deputy Director and State Controller, per his own email signature in this production) attended the 4/15/2025 Hudson bilateral with Berman and Young at the Auditor's office Room 230. Babbitt's own description in his 4/16/2025 9:25 AM "Virtual Introductions" email to ASHERS Executive Secretary [[robyn-smith]]: "Secretary Hudson and I met yesterday with Larry and Brad to discuss the potential advantages and opportunities to purchase Israeli bonds." The "Secretary Hudson and I" framing newly documents Babbitt as the second DFA principal present at the bilateral, alongside Hudson. The newly documented DFA-side attendance refines this concept page's prior framing of the Hudson bilateral as a one-on-one Secretary meeting. The bilateral was a two-on-two: Secretary Hudson + Deputy Director and State Controller Babbitt on the DFA side; Berman + Young on the DCI side. Spadoni and Brady from the Auditor's office likely hosted at Room 230 (per the calendar invite naming "Auditor's office Room 230" as venue) but the substantive DFA participation is documented as two principals. The 4/15 Hudson-Babbitt bilateral produced one documented downstream outcome: Babbitt's 4/16 introduction email to ASHERS, routing the DCI pitch to a non-Auditor's-office Arkansas pension system via the DFA channel. The DFA-channel routing to ASHERS produced the passive-non-engagement decline outcome documented at [[ashers-declined-pitch-control-case]]. The Capitol tour's outcome at the Hudson-Babbitt bilateral is therefore documented as DFA-channel activation rather than DFA-itself adoption (DFA does not directly purchase bonds; DFA Secretary Hudson is an ex officio member of the APERS Board per [[apers-board-governance-structure]]). The Capitol tour's eight bilaterals produced documented adopting-system outcomes at ATRS (White meeting), APERS (Fecher meeting), and Treasury (Thurston meeting); documented routing-channel-activation outcomes at the Hudson-Babbitt-DFA meeting (downstream Babbitt-Smith ASHERS introduction with declined-pitch outcome); and undocumented or no-outcome at the Speaker Evans + Warren, Bassett, and Hester bilaterals. ## Tensions This concept page surfaces one first-class tension filed as a tension page per the Hegelion layer documented at [[methodology]] § II. - [[T022 - Hudson Capitol Tour Meeting Time and Location]] — what was the actual time and venue of the 4/15/2025 Hudson bilateral within the Capitol tour. Statement A: the Milligan Outlook calendar invite (3:00 PM at Auditor's Capitol Office Room 230) is the authoritative source; the Spadoni 4/11 pre-trip schedule's 2:00 PM at DFA framing was superseded by a late-stage scheduling revision. Statement B: both documents are authoritative for their custodian purposes and the documentary record does not establish which version Berman acted on, leaving the actual meeting parameters indeterminate without additional evidence. *factual tension. Status: open.*