CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: St. Louis Circuit Attorney hasn’t disclosed trips as required by law, documents show.

A News 4 investigation has found that St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has been flying all around the country and the globe with organizations who want to reform the criminal justice system.

However, it appears she has violated the law, by not reporting the trips.

Sources tell News 4 Gardner is a frequent flyer. At times during her tenure as prosecutor, sources say, she has often been gone from her office a couple of times every month, jetting around on someone else’s dime.

Social media snaps show Gardner posing for pictures in Portugal, listening to conversations in New Haven, Connecticut, smiling with other prosecutors in Houston and linking arms in Selma, Alabama.

They are trips she apparently took in 2018 and 2019, but did not disclose on travel reports, as required by law.

Sources tell News 4 that some of the trips were paid for in full, or in part, by an organization called Fair and Just Prosecution, a group that professes to support progressive prosecutors. The organization has repeatedly applauded many of Gardner’s actions, including the charges against Mark and Patricia McCloskey for brandishing guns in the Central West End last month.

I hope the feds, or the State of Missouri, will investigate this thoroughly. The notion that she might be prosecuting people at the behest of an organization that has given her free travel is disturbing, and undermines the public trust that an effective prosecutor must have.