Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell has petitioned the Montana Supreme Court to look at the Montana Attorney General exercising supervisory control over the county’s legal apparatus, as well as legal issues regarding information sharing with federal authorities.

On April 30, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen used his ability to exercise supervisory control over the Gallatin County Attorney General’s Office after a flurry of letters between him and Cromwell during the past year. Knudsen gave an ultimatum to Cromwell to issue a memo to county staff after he alleged they “created a policy restricting the sharing of information with ICE in the form of legal advice purporting to distinguish between ICE’s civil and criminal enforcement activities.”

Supervisory control by the state attorney general’s office includes sharing confidential criminal justice information with ICE, “for all lawful purposes, including civil administration immigration matters,” and directs her to produce documents.

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“The cognitive dissonance in your reply is astounding,” Knudsen said in an April 30 press release announcing supervisory control. “You have now sworn under oath that there is no policy regarding sharing CCJI with ICE. Yet you also maintain that, under your novel interpretation of Montana law, Gallatin County will not share CCJI with ICE for civil immigration enforcement purposes without a court order. Both things cannot be true.”

An email sent by Cromwell’s office to local law enforcement last year states Gallatin County Attorney’s Office “does not legally recognize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a law enforcement agency entitled to receive Confidential Criminal Justice Information (CCJI).”

Cromwell, via affidavit, has said no such policy exists in Gallatin County. The matter in question regards a request for information from federal immigration authorities — Cromwell has said the agency, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was acting in a civil capacity in that particular matter, not a law enforcement agency, and had to go through a specific process to obtain the information they were after.

This puts Cromwell in a difficult position, the petition to the state Supreme Court says. Cromwell is being represented by Raph Graybill and Rachel Parker of Graybill Law Firm.

“Without declaratory relief, Cromwell faces an impossible situation: compelled to provide legal advice she assesses to be incorrect,” the petition reads. “She and her clients face the immediate prospect of severe civil and criminal penalties if they follow incorrect advice and improperly release CCJI in response to a civil request without a court order.”

The petition adds Knudsen’s, “political theatrics have blown a simple, case-specific email exchange between a legal assistant and a county administrative office into a statewide crisis.”

Cromwell has asked Knudsen to write an advisory opinion on the legal issue, which he has not done. Advisory opinions, written by the Attorney General’s Office, have the force of case law until a district court or supreme court decides a legal question.

“Once this Court declares the governing law, no supervisory control is necessary: if the Attorney General is correct, Cromwell will be bound by this Court’s legally operative interpretation,” the petition reads. “If Cromwell is correct, the Attorney General’s directives pursuant to his assumption of supervisory control are unlawful.”