Kentucky attorney general can’t explain why he hasn’t used key to his office in three years

Daniel Cameron is currently a candidate for governor

The Republican attorney general of Kentucky, Daniel Cameron, has reportedly not used his key fob to enter the state capitol building in Frankfurt even once in the last three years.

According to records obtained by HuffPost, Mr Cameron’s key fob and security card logs from the Capitol show that he has not used his own credentials to enter the building where his office is located since January of 2020. Mr Cameron was first elected to the job in November of 2019.

There are, as HuffPost notes in its story, several potential ways to explain why the attorney general hasn’t shown up for work at his main office in more than three years.

One possibility is that Mr Cameron has spent much of his time since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic working remotely. Another is that he has had a staff member or Capitol official swipe him into the building, or that he’s used an entrance that does not require him to use his key fob or security card. Still another explanation is that he’s instead choosing to work out of one of the attorney general’s five satellite offices scattered around the state.

But Mr Cameron’s office did not offer any of those explanations for HuffPost’s reporting, instead choosing to contest the data revealed by the open records request.

“This is not correct,” Atley Smedley, Mr Cameron’s deputy communications director, told HuffPost of the notion that his boss isn’t going to his office. “Attorney General Cameron has regularly come to his office since he assumed the position of Attorney General in December 2019.”

There are several other factors complicating the narrative about Mr Cameron’s whereabouts. One is that Mr Cameron has been photographed in the Capitol building on multiple occassions since 2020, suggesting that the key fob records are not in fact wholly reflective of his presence or lack thereof in the building.

Another records request from HuffPost revealed that Mr Cameron did use his key fob to enter the Capitol 11 times between May 2019 and January 2020.

Daniel Cameron, the Republican attorney general in the state of Kentucky, pictured on the campaign trail (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

In a statement to The Independent, Mr Cameron’s communications director Shellie May wrote the key fob records “do not accurately reflect the comings and goings of General Cameron or any elected official.”

“Attorney General Cameron has regularly come to his office since he assumed the position of Attorney General in December 2019, and he works tirelessly advocating for the men, women, and children of all 120 Kentucky counties,” she wrote. “Due to security concerns, the Office cannot provide any additional information.”

Mr Cameron, a former aide to Sen Mitch McConnell, has been under a newly intense spotlight since he won the Republican primary for governor in May. Mr Cameron will face incumbent Democrat Andy Beshear in November, with Mr Beshear seeking re-election after he beat former Gov Matt Bevin by less than single percentage point in 2019.