Emails shed light on why an ambitious Boise police investigation was shut down early

The Washington, D.C., law firm hired to investigate racism at the Boise Police Department warned city officials that a full investigation could cost millions. But city leaders went ahead with the probe and then shut it down early to save money, leaving the law firm to say that it lacked confidence in its own incomplete investigation.

In the days after Boise city officials learned that a retired police captain had published racist views online, leaders scrambled to begin an investigation that would examine whether the problem was larger than a single officer who had spent nearly 24 years in the department.

The lead investigator, Michael Bromwich, told the City Council in May of problems he had identified over three months of work, including issues with hiring, promotions and training. Afterward, most council members said they felt the report had uncovered important findings that require further examination.

But Bromwich emphasized that the firm, Steptoe & Johnson, had not had a chance to examine tens of thousands of pages of documents, complete most of the officer interviews it intended to do, or interview minority members of the public about their experiences. Those unturned stones meant the overall findings were delivered “without a high level of confidence,” Bromwich said.

A former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Justice, Bromwich has previously led high-profile probes in other cities, including a corruption scandal at the Baltimore Police Department.

“I have never not completed an investigation before,” Bromwich told the Idaho Statesman by phone.

Interviews with council members and emails between city officials and the law firm show how investigators had concerns about any caps on cost from the outset, and that city leaders intent on getting the investigation started were not unified about what the inquiry should entail.

At the same time, the investigation began to meet resistance from some political factions in the city, with Mike Masterson, a former police chief, criticizing the choice of an out-of-state law firm. Masterson later announced that he would run for mayor against Mayor Lauren McLean in this November’s election.

‘No reputable firm could do it for that amount’

Last November, Boise leaders learned that the retired captain, Matt Bryngelson, was scheduled to speak at a conference organized by a white supremacist organization called American Renaissance. A prominent Twitter user posted about the conference online and linked Bryngelson to posts, written under a pseudonym, that expressed racist views about Black people and criminality.

In a May email, mayoral spokesperson Maria Weeg said the initial revelations that Bryngelson was “actively involved in white supremacist activities” had “shocked and horrified” city staff members.

“Something like that can wreck the trust our community has in our Police Department,” Weeg said. “We’re lucky in Boise to have strong relationships between our officers and our residents. To keep it that way, the mayor and council members needed to quickly understand whether one officer’s actions were more widespread so they could address the situation, if necessary.”

Bromwich told the council that McLean reached out to him through a “mutual acquaintance” because of his experience investigating police departments.

Weeg said city staff members worked to define the scope of the investigation and negotiate a “not to exceed” contract, which allows funds to be spent up to a certain amount. The final agreement charged Steptoe & Johnson with examining Bryngelson’s police work, and whether racist ideology “runs deeper” within the department.

Emails obtained by the Statesman show that, in November, Bromwich expected the full investigation could cost $2 million. The firm charged $825 per hour for each involved lawyer’s time, and planned to bill monthly.

When city officials and Bromwich were negotiating a contract, Bromwich objected to the city’s inclusion of a spending cap in the initial draft.

“No one had mentioned that and we cannot agree to any kind of cap,” Bromwich wrote in a Nov. 30 email. “One of the hallmarks of an independent investigation is that we go where the evidence leads us, subject to the agreed-upon scope. That is consistent with neither a time limitation nor a budget cap.”

Boise’s city attorney, Jayme Sullivan, replied that the cap was needed “due to appropriation restrictions,” and noted that such contracts are often renewed or extended.

Bromwich said that starting with a cap could telegraph that the investigation could be finished for that amount. The initial communications indicate the city planned the first spending cap benchmark to be $200,000.

“No reputable firm could do it for that amount,” he said. “My best estimate is that it will cost in excess of $2M, but that’s only an estimate and is a wild guess … I would be delighted if it costs less. I can assure you that I will manage the matter personally and carefully and that we will not waste time, effort or resources. I just don’t want the mayor or you to have to explain to council or the public how the amount so substantially exceeded the initial estimates. That happened to me once when I worked for a city many years ago. Although everything turned out fine, I vowed never again to be in that position.”

Sullivan replied later that same evening, which was a day after the City Council had held a private executive session.

“In answering questions from council last night, I think there is a desire for a full and complete investigation coupled with some accountability and management,” she wrote. “I have no doubt that you and your firm will be fiscally responsible in this endeavor, but I’m also just as confident council will not likely approve 2M at the onset. They look at a not-to-exceed as an opportunity to stay connected to the investigation as well as accountable to the taxpayers. Is there a number shy of 2M but more than 200K that you feel comfortable with in the contract to start out with, understanding that council can refresh the amount in the future?”

The initial agreement was for up to $500,000.

‘It didn’t seem … there was a lot else to investigate’

Over the winter, investigators made trips to Boise, interviewing city leaders and current and former officers. They also created a website for tips and requested documents from the department.

At the end of January, Bromwich received tens of thousands of documents from the department, and later planned an early March trip to Boise – which would have been the firm’s third.

As the weeks ticked by, Bromwich’s team approached the $500,000 limit and began to discuss expanding the contract with city leaders.

The March trip was canceled to avoid going over the spending cap. On March 10, Council President Holli Woodings told the Statesman the council had “no plans” to allocate more money, though it planned to learn more about what the investigation still had left to do.

More than a month later, on April 21, Mayor Lauren McLean told Steptoe that no further funding would be authorized, Bromwich said during his May presentation.

“It didn’t seem to us at that point that there was a lot else to investigate,” Woodings said by phone. “There wasn’t anything found that was egregious. … While there are definitely some things to follow up on, it didn’t seem at the time like Bromwich’s firm would have to be the firm to follow up on all of that.”

Woodings said she felt like the initial half-million dollars would be close to “sufficient” to conduct the needed investigation. Woodings said Bromwich’s initial estimates were “not communicated to the council.”

“I think that different members of council had a different understanding,” Woodings said, adding that some members thought the full investigation could cost considerably more, while others were not interested in allocating more funds.

The day of the May presentation, the city also announced an additional $150,000 was needed to cover “loose ends” and to allow Steptoe to prepare its findings.

Luci Willits, the council’s only Republican, voted against authorizing the $150,000. She said she didn’t like being “put in the position of being asked to forgive versus giving permission,” because the funds had already been spent by the firm before the investigation was over.

“It went over budget without approval,” Willits said in a text message to the Statesman.

As of early June, Steptoe had invoiced for $671,297.

Weeg, the mayoral spokesperson, told the Statesman that the additional $150,000 came from funds already allocated to the mayor’s office. The council did not need to approve the extra funds, but it did need to approve adjusting the Steptoe contract.

She also said the city is “holding firm” on the $650,000, meaning it does not plan to pay the outstanding $21,297.

In an interview, McLean told the Statesman it wasn’t worth spending more on the external investigators after the firm outlined its initial findings.

“He was clear with our city staff about the likely costs,” McLean said. “They were clear with him that we had a limit, at which point he would need to come back to council with information to determine if we should move forward beyond that.”

McLean said she plans to address the law firm’s findings internally with the involvement of the Boise Police Department, and with further review to be conducted by the city’s police oversight office.

‘I would have walked away’

Bromwich said if he had to do the Boise investigation again, he wouldn’t, because the city did not do it justice.

“If I had been told there was going to be any kind of cap at the beginning, I would have walked away,” Bromwich told the Statesman. “I felt misled about the circumstances under which we began the investigation. … They told me that it was common practice for the amount to be raised. And so I took them at their word. And that turned out not to be true.”

The investigators did not have the chance to review substantial department records, Bromwich said during his presentation. Those included 105,000 separate police documents; Bryngelson’s emails and body camera footage of his interactions with the public; Bryngelson’s Internal Affairs file, which included “a large number” of complaints; a memorandum that former Chief Ryan Lee had said indicated potential discrimination in hiring; and complaints some officers – including Bryngelson – lodged against Lee.

The Statesman reviewed Bryngelson’s sent work emails from 2022 and found no evidence of racist conduct.

The initial scope “anticipated us looking at a variety of things, including training and supervision, accountability systems, and we really weren’t able to do more than touch on those in a very light way,” Bromwich told the Statesman.

Bromwich said he didn’t know about the political environment in Boise when he began his work, or that the investigation would become a political football.

“One of the reasons I don’t work under caps is exactly for this reason, because it’s flashed as a figure and people are going to have reactions,” he said. “A budget cap is the antithesis of an independent investigation, because you really do have to follow the evidence where it leads you, and if you’re working under a cap, you’re constrained from the outset.”

Beyond the concerns about Bryngelson, he said law enforcement deserves scrutiny.

“Given the importance of policing in really almost every community right now, it’s a good idea to have a thorough review by some independent entity of how the police department is operating,” he said.

Council member knew investigation could cost more

Council Member Patrick Bageant, an attorney, told the Statesman that he knew a full investigation would cost more than $500,000 and that the Steptoe findings were well worth spending money on.

“I’d always anticipated further conversations about allocating more money if needed, (or) potentially ending the investigation if it turns out that, you know, Bryngelson was the only one and that work wasn’t needed, which is kind of what happened,” Bageant said.

In the initial conversations about the investigation, he said, it was difficult to understand its scope – and therefore its potential cost – because it wasn’t clear what investigators needed to look into until after the probe began.

After three months of work, Bageant said that there was “no compelling evidence to suggest that it’s worth looking hard at the Boise Police Department for racism” and that the findings Bromwich did discover could be addressed “in a more cost-effective manner” than continuing the investigation.

Nonetheless, he said he would have been open to spending more money on the investigation, because he thought the law firm’s product was worth more than its cost.

Bageant said the Boise Police Department’s budget – the biggest of any city agency – should be considered when examining whether an investigation is worth the money. The department’s budget for this year is $84 million. Its proposed budget for next fiscal year is $95 million.

Bageant said spending $650,000 “to get a report on whether the one avowed, nationally prominent white supremacist is the only one in your $87 million operation” is “not an egregious waste of money as some people, I think heading into the election, are trying to characterize it.”