BOISE, ID – An Idaho judge has ordered Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador be deposed in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by a former AG office attorney.
Idaho 4th District Judge Jonathan Medema on April 17 partially rejected the Office of the Attorney General’s motion for a protective order that would’ve prevented Labrador from answering questions by former Deputy Attorney General Daphne Huang’s attorneys in her lawsuit.
In September 2023, Huang, who previously represented the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, sued Labrador’s office after she was fired, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. She alleged the Idaho attorney general’s office retaliated against her after she raised ethical concerns related to her clients’ legal representation.
The judge limited Labrador’s in-person deposition to last up to two hours.
“I have evidence in the deposition testimony … that Attorney General Labrador was the person in the office who made the decision to terminate Ms. Huang’s employment. What he knew and why he chose to make that (decision) … is important information for the plaintiff’s claims,” Medema said in an April 14 court hearing.
The judge, in a separate ruling, also sanctioned the Idaho Attorney General’s Office for Labrador’s failure to appear for his previously scheduled deposition. Hours after the deposition was set to occur, the Attorney General’s Office filed a motion for a protective order that sought to stop Labrador from being deposed.
The judge required the office to pay expenses, including attorney fees, related to Labrador’s deposition. He also required the Attorney General’s Office to pay plaintiff’s expenses, including attorney fees, associated with their motion for sanctions.
“If Defendant wanted to file a motion seeking a protective order, it was incumbent upon Defendant to at least file that motion before February 14, at 9 a.m.,” when Labrador’s deposition was originally scheduled, Medema wrote in his decision released April 17.
The Idaho Office of the Attorney General could not be immediately reached for comment.
In a statement, Guy Hallam, an attorney for Huang, said “No one is above the law, including the Idaho Attorney General.”
“Ms. Huang applauds the Court’s decision to allow Mr. Labrador’s deposition to move forward and appreciates the Court’s grant of sanctions against the Office of Attorney General after Mr. Labrador failed to show up for his previously scheduled deposition,” Hallam wrote. “No one is above the law, including the Idaho Attorney General.”
Lawsuit ties back to Labrador’s child care grants investigation into Department of Health and Welfare
Huang’s lawsuit ties back to an investigation the Idaho Attorney General’s Office launched in early 2023 into how $72 million in child care grants were distributed by the Department of Health and Welfare.
In August 2023, a state audit found issues in the grant distribution and spending, despite two legal memos Huang wrote to Health and Welfare that found the agency’s administration of the grant funds was legally sound. Labrador’s office had withdrawn the legal advice.
Months later, the critical state audit spurred reform efforts in Health and Welfare, despite former agency leadership’s initial response to refute all of the audit’s findings.
Since March 2024, when two lawsuits by organizations that received the funds concluded, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office has not issued public updates about its investigation. Lawsuits surrounding the investigation were the main avenue for updates.
In December 2023, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office’s special prosecutor in the investigation, Christopher Boyd, claimed in a legal filing that he found probable cause that the agency’s then-grant manager had committed a crime.
The prosecutor did not cite evidence for the claim, or cite a specific crime. More than a year later, no criminal charges have been filed against the former agency employee, Idaho court records show.
In August 2023, Labrador appointed Boyd, who is now Canyon County’s prosecuting attorney, as a special prosecutor in the investigation.
His appointment followed a separate Idaho judge’s ruling that barred Labrador from pursuing what are essentially subpoenas in civil court in the case. The court order found a conflict of interest since the Attorney General’s Office previously provided legal advice on the grants to Health and Welfare.
But the ruling still allowed Labrador to oversee the grants investigation. Boyd later said he’d withdraw the civil investigative demands to conserve resources, saying a state audit answered questions that the demands sought to answer.
Huang filed a complaint against Labrador with the Idaho State Bar. The former Health and Welfare director did, too.
In August 2024, former Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen disclosed to the Idaho Capital Sun he had filed an ethics complaint against Labrador with the Idaho State Bar in June 2023.
Court records in Huang’s lawsuit show Labrador was subject to another complaint — by Huang — with Idaho’s attorney licensing association.
Hallam, an attorney for Huang, confirmed to the Sun that Huang had filed a bar complaint against Labrador, but did not share the complaint itself.
In a February ruling, Judge Medema writes that Yvonne Dunbar, the Idaho Attorney General’s Office fair hearings division chief and state general counsel, “was asked if the Office of the Attorney General was made aware that Ms. Huang had filed a bar complaint against Mr. Labrador.”
The judge overruled Dunbar’s objection to that question, which was on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. He granted a motion to compel on the question, asked by Huang’s attorneys in deposition.
In that ruling, the judge rejected a host of other objections in Dunbar’s deposition attempted by the Idaho Office of the Attorney General.
Huang’s lawsuit is scheduled to go to a jury trial in October.