Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Auriella Giacometto spent public funds to fly to Dallas for the National Rifle Association's annual convention. (Photo credit: Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
The leader of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality spent public money on a three-day trip to Dallas to deliver a speech for the National Rifle Association, a group she worked with extensively before taking over the state agency.
LDEQ Secretary Aurelia Skipwith Giacometto’s interstate travel to benefit a private organization raises ethical concerns and questions about what she believes her role is in the Landry administration.
The Illuminator obtained Giacometto’s travel records, emails, receipts and other documents from the trip from LDEQ through a public records request. Based on a copy of her speech, Giacometto mentioned little about her work at the agency or why it was important for her to be at an NRA convention. Since then, her office has declined multiple requests for comment on this report.
Robert Collins, a political analyst and professor of public policy at Dillard University, said public officials generally aren’t supposed to use taxpayer money for out-of-state travel unless it’s a necessary and obvious part of their regular job duties.
“You cannot mix taxpayer money with any sort of partisan activity that is not directly related to carrying out the job duties of that official,” Collins said in a phone interview, citing a general prohibition in the Louisiana Constitution.
Prior NRA connections
The NRA is an influential conservative organization that opposes gun control and supports policies that favor gun owners and firearm manufacturers. Its lobbying arm spent $2.3 million last year at the federal level to influence legislation, according to OpenSecrets.org.
The NRA Hunters Leadership Forum, formed in 2014 in “response to the culture war on American hunters” according to its website, featured Giacometto as its speaker for one of several sideshow events at the NRA convention in May.
Giacometto’s old boss, former President Donald Trump, delivered the keynote speech at the convention, which serves as the largest fundraiser for the organization.
Gov. Jeff Landry picked Giacometto, who led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under Trump, to lead the Department of Environmental Quality, an agency with no oversight of hunting, game animals or firearms.
Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment last week, and the governor would not directly answer questions posed to him at a news conference Monday for an unrelated subject.
Giacometto also declined to field questions about her NRA appearance.
During her final days in the Trump administration, Giacometto signed a deal that some critics saw as a parting gift to the NRA to help boost membership in the organization, which had spent $50 million to help elect Trump in 2016. The deal was formalized in a memorandum of understanding as a 10-year partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the NRA to assist in the “recruitment, education and retaining” of sport hunters.
At that time, the NRA was facing internal power struggles, bankruptcy and charges of corruption, according to a National Public Radio report . The Biden administration rescinded the partnership a few months later.
After leaving her federal government post, Giacometto went on a speaking tour for the NRA. She appeared at several events in swing states and elsewhere ahead of the 2022 congressional midterm elections and beyond. Photos and conference agendas posted online indicate she spoke at the annual NRA convention in Houston in May 2022 and then headlined at least four NRA state conferences: in Nevada on June 4, 2022; Wisconsin on June 18, 2022; Georgia on June 25, 2022; and Arizona on Oct. 28, 2023.
Additionally, she sat for interviews and photographs with NRA-connected publications, including one from December 2022 showing her on a private tour at the NRA National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.
It’s unknown whether the NRA paid Giacometto for all of that interstate travel and speaking she did for the organization from 2022-23. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.
Giacometto was a private citizen at the time.
Upon taking the top job at LDEQ in January, state ethics rules required her to disclose any income sources of over $1,000 for the previous calendar year. Records from the state ethics administration show Giacometto reported earning between $300,000 and $600,000 for her work as a consultant and as a corporate board member. The NRA is not listed among her sources of income.
Small state expense still raises trust issues
Giacometto spent roughly $950 in public funds for her trip to Dallas. This included $607 for airfare that DEQ booked through a travel agency. A receipt for the airfare included the description, “Official State Government Business.” After the trip, Giacometto claimed reimbursement of $177 for meals and $166 for taxis and incidentals. The NRA covered her two-night hotel stay, which cost about $600.
In a state that spends $50 billion a year, Giacometto’s use of taxpayer money on the NRA might seem insignificant from a wider fiscal perspective, but Collins said it’s not really the dollar amount that matters. It’s about whether the taxpayers can trust the administration with their money, he added.
“It’s still an inappropriate use of taxpayer money — bottom line,” he said. “Taxpayer money should be spent only for activity that directly benefits the taxpayers. Any sort of private advocacy or political advocacy needs to be paid for by the individual or by the organization that invited the individual.”
Making room for Landry’s expanded ethics board requires a costly upgrade
Collins pointed out that public opinion is just about unanimous on these kinds of questions. “Certainly if you ask somebody off the street, ‘Do you want your tax dollars to pay for an agency head to go speak and advocate for a partisan political cause?’ their answer is going to be no every time,” he said.
According to the state’s general travel policies , department heads are supposed to “minimize all travel in order to carry on the department’s mission.”
If the trip actually was for official state government business, then it is unclear why the NRA would cover Giacometto’s hotel costs. According to the Louisiana Board of Ethics, state officials are supposed to disclose whenever an outside third-party pays for any portion of their travel and must do so within 60 days of the event. The Ethics Administration confirmed it has received no such disclosure, which would have been due in mid-July.
Collins said the Board of Ethics isn’t always willing or able to enforce its own rules.
Speech praises Trump, Landry
Giacometto’s speech in Dallas was mostly autobiographical interspersed with pro-gun platitudes about “God given rights” and words of praise for Trump and Landry. The Illuminator obtained a version of it that she requested be saved in LDEQ’s records 10 days after her trip.
“I am forever grateful to have served under President Trump,” she wrote. “I was tasked in delivering his policies; he was a man of the people.”
Giacometto told the crowd she was excited to be working for Gov. Landry, who “won a jungle election and bucked the system, and he continues to do that everyday.” She added that Landry is a “fighter for the people of Louisiana.”
The LDEQ secretary also shared some family wisdom for the hunters in attendance.
“My grandfather taught me ‘if you didn’t grow it, catch it, or kill it, then you didn’t eat it,’” Giacometto said.
The climactic point in her speech appears near the end when she rails against nameless environmental groups that are apparently suing her office.
“I get angry when I see the same cadre of so-called ‘environmental groups’ and environmental justice groups who constantly file lawsuits to halt progress and success,” her speech stated. “These lawsuits do nothing but waste taxpayer money, make law firms rich and fund the staff that do nothing to help the land or the wildlife they say they care about.”
Landry was a major beneficiary of plaintiff trial lawyers during his campaign for governor.
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