By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Though they could not find anything “nefarious,” a state Department of Justice and
Department of Administrative Services review of how a state agency replied to a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement request for information on a now-scrubbed detention facility in Merrimack, they did find the governor was not informed.
The report, released Friday afternoon, concludes that the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources should be properly trained in how they convey information from a 91A public right-to-know request.
It did not recommend any further employment action though former DNCR Commissioner Sarah Stewart resigned at the request of Gov, Kelly Ayotte over the matter.
The 19-page report dated April 23 is subject to attorney-client, deliberative process, and executive privileges which Ayotte waived and released the document to the public.
It states that at a special meeting of the Governor and Executive Council on February 4, 2026, Stewart and Director of DNCR’s Division of Historical Resources, Benjamin Wilson answered several questions about a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union – NH the previous day, which showed that at least one state department knew about ICE’s request for information to the state, despite the fact that Governor Ayotte said she had had no contact with the Trump Administration on the matter.
The ACLU-NH press release indicated that ICE had contacted DNCR staff and that DNCR staff had responded to a RSA 91-A request from the ACLU concerning that contact.
Then-Commissioner Stewart stated that she was unaware of both ICE’s contact and the 91-A request from ACLU-NH until the day prior, and that the governor had not been made aware of either.
Director Wilson provided comments on when he became aware of ICE’s contact with DNCR and the ACLU’s 91-A request, and his Division’s role in responding to both.
Both former Commissioner Stewart and Director Wilson acknowledged shortcomings in their processes and responses.
Ayotte asked for the Attorney General to review the facts and circumstances “so that we know what
happened here, so that we understand the lapse, and so that it doesn’t happen again.”
The report states that the AG interviewed 12 people: all nine DHR staff members plus former Commissioner Stewart, DNCR’s Public Information Officer Shelly Angers, and DNCR’s General Counsel Nathan Kenison-Marvin.
They also reviewed over 10,000 documents (including emails, text and chat messages, meeting notes, news articles, and a wide variety of other documents), state-issued cell phones belonging to former
Commissioner Stewart and Director Wilson, and a state-issued laptop belonging to former Commissioner Stewart.
“We found no evidence that former Commissioner Stewart was aware of either the submission from ICE or the 91-A request from the ACLU until February 3, 2026, after the publication of a press release by the ACLU,” it reads.
“Director Wilson, however, was aware of ICE’s submission as multiple staff members raised it to his Deputy, who raised it to him. Director Wilson nonetheless failed to elevate it to former Commissioner Stewart, despite an awareness of media coverage regarding ICE and reporting that ICE was looking to open a facility in Merrimack,” the report states.
Director Wilson was also aware of the ACLU’s 91-A request to his Division. He similarly failed to elevate that request to DNCR’s internal general counsel, external counsel at DOJ, or former Commissioner Stewart.
“While there is no indication that these failures were due to nefarious intent on Director
Wilson’s part, the failure to elevate occurred despite efforts by former Commissioner Stewart
and others at DNCR to regularly seek information from Director-level leaders on sensitive or
otherwise important issues. Director Wilson’s response to the 91-A request was also deficient in
several respects. Director Wilson acknowledged and took responsibility for his failure to make
former Commissioner Stewart aware of ICE’s and the ACLU’s interactions with his office.
“We uncovered no evidence to substantiate that any classified staff within DNCR’s Division of Historical Resources provided the ACLU with information or attempted to improperly conceal information from superiors. Accordingly, we do not recommend opening a personnel investigation or taking any disciplinary measures under the rules governing personnel administration. We do, however, include several recommendations below to increase awareness within DHR and DNCR more broadly of the need to elevate sensitive matters to the DNCR Commissioner and the Governor’s Office and better deploy the agency’s general counsel,” the report states.
As it concludes in “opinions” the report said that Director Wilson should have elevated ICE’s submission of a 106 review request to former Commissioner Stewart.
“With respect to ICE’s submission of a 106 review request to DHR and DHR’s subsequent response, we found no evidence warranting further investigation or disciplinary measures against any of DHR’s classified employees.
“We further conclude that DHR’s determination that no historical properties would be affected by ICE’s proposed facility was strictly confined to its effect on historical resources, and had no effect on any other federal, state, or municipal approvals for the facility or anything to do with the nature of the facility itself. However, a lack of awareness of, and sensitivity to, important issues led to Director Wilson’s incorrect decision not to elevate this specific 106 review request to the Commissioner prior to DHR issuing a
response. We found nothing to substantiate that this failure was based on any nefarious intent on
Director Wilson’s part, but several facts support the conclusion that he should have elevated the
request.”
Federal law requires DHR to respond to all 106 review requests within 30 days. All of DHR’s staff members confirmed this responsibility and noted DHR’s desire to comply with this deadline.
Director Wilson is an unclassified employee.
Stewart who had announced previously she would not seek another term and would end her tenure in June gave her resignation at the governor’s request days after the incident came to light.
“Director Wilson’s response to the ACLU’s right-to-know request was inappropriate for several reasons, but he did not intentionally conceal it,” it reads.
The report finds DNCR did not adequately foster a culture of elevating sensitive issues to leadership in a
timely manner.
“Both within DHR and DNCR more broadly, we found that leadership did not adequately foster a culture of encouraging or requiring staff to elevate potentially sensitive issues in a timely manner. Within DHR, the vast majority of staff felt that they should only raise any potential issue with Deputy Miller, and never with Director Wilson directly unless it concerned a 91-A request. This rigid hierarchy contributed significantly to DHR’s disjointed efforts to internally elevate ICE’s 106 review request. Though at least two staff members had pointed concerns about the request, they did not feel they could bring them to Director Wilson and had to go through Deputy Miller,” it reads.
“More broadly, we find that former Commissioner Stewart also did not adequately promote awareness of the biweekly report or the internal reporting of potentially sensitive issues throughout DNCR,” it states.
“Finally, former Commissioner Stewart’s hands-off approach to leadership did not foster an environment in which her staff had clear expectations of what to report to her. She described herself as ‘not a micromanager’ and expressed preferring to lean on her leadership team and let them utilize their expertise in their various work areas to run their Divisions,” it states.
“She thought she had still made it clear enough to staff to come to her with important issues. While her desire to highlight her staff’s strengths and avoid micromanaging is commendable in some respects, it ultimately created an impression among staff of passivity and disconnectedness. Many interviewees described feeling a lack of strong leadership at the helm of DNCR, which was concerning considering that DNCR is still a relatively new agency formed from previously unconnected Divisions….”, which were sometimes in tension with each other as discussed further. It also concluded DNCR did not align the duties of its general counsel with his official job description, leading to inconsistencies and poor practices with respect to 91-A requests.
“DNCR’s implementation of its first in-house general counsel beginning in July 2025 was poorly executed on several fronts. We conclude that better rollout and integration of the general counsel role very well could have prevented all of the events giving rise to this review, and we further conclude that former Commissioner Stewart is responsible for DNCR’s failed addition of this new role,” the report states.
The recommendations are that DNCR should centralize its 91-A response process, strengthen its processes relating to the Governor’s biweekly report and should retrain agency staff on RSA chapter 91-A.
“This training should be mandatory for all employees,” it states. “It is our understanding that this recommendation is already being implemented, and senior staff members reported several improvements on this front since Interim Commissioner (Adam) Crepeau’s confirmation.”