Minnesota‘s woke attorney is spending $150,000 of taxpayer money on a PR firm after a series of embarrassing scandals.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty tapped the Wren Collective in a $150,000 deal which she says will be used to break down complex legal topics to the public.
Moriarty has found herself engulfed in a series of recent scandals, including the Justice Department opening a civil rights investigation into her office after she allegedly ordered her staff to follow a policy that considered racial identity in cases.
The DA also has also faced criticism for letting a state worker who keyed six Teslas off the hook and for allowing alleged child rapists to walk free.
She prompted controversy by coming out against the Trump-approved Laken Riley Act, which requires law enforcement to work with federal agents to detain undocumented migrants arrested for certain crimes.
The PR deal came to light after Moriarty requested an additional $60,000 a year from the Hennepin County Board for to pay the firm. The funds were approved on Tuesday.
The publicity gurus brought in describes their goal as ‘to reimagine the way our country approaches criminal justice’ in a bid to combat ‘the oppression of … groups including women, trans people, migrants [and] the unhoused’ on the firm’s website.
The company says it focuses on local and national issues to ‘diagnose the problem’ and use ‘communications, research, and policy to change them.’
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has tapped the Wren Collective in a $150,000 deal that she says will help to break down complex legal topics to the public
The company says its lawyers have ‘spent considerable time witnessing the dramatic failures of our legal system and learning about the ways society could have kept people healthy and communities safe, but failed to do so.’
Jessica Brand, the PR firm’s founder, told The Minnesota Star Tribune it was a ‘smart policy’ for Moriarty’s office to use her brand to help craft messages for the public.
The contract accounts for less than one percent of Moriarty’s $84million budget.
Sarah Davis, director of the Children and Families Division of the County Attorney’s office, told The Star Tribune that the county attorney had recently negotiated a 50 percent discount from the firm.
The goal of the partnership was to help communicate ‘complex legal issues’ to the general public, she said.
‘The work that we do is very complex and spans a wide range of issues,’ Davis told the board.
‘Especially now, at a time when there are broad misinformation campaigns, it is really critical we have the ability to communicate this complex work in a way that can allow our community to engage with us.’
Jessica Brand, Wren Collective founder, said it was a ‘smart policy’ for Moriarty’s office to use her brand to help craft messages to the public
Moriarty, who was elected in 2022, ran on a reform platform that was similar to the Wren Collective’s messaging.
It is not the first time Moriarty has enlisted third-party help inside her office.
Last year her office spent $578,000 to hire Steptoe LLP, a Washington DC-based law firm, to take over the murder investigation of a state trooper.
Moriarty hired the firm after the lead prosecutor on the case stepped aside.
Moriarty also faces a growing tension about public messages between her and the police on public safety.
The Hennepin County Chiefs of Police hired a PR firm last year to refute the anti-law enforcement narratives they claimed the county attorney’s office was instituting.
The Minnesota Police and Peace Office Association has also criticized the woke county attorney.
The organization spent $350,000 in the last three years to promote its work, The Star Tribune reported.
Brian Peters, executive director of the association, criticized Moriarty for hiring the Wren Collective as he said she should be focusing on her job, not fixing her office’s public image.
‘She’s spending public funds to protect her reputation,’ he told The Star Tribune.
Sources told the local outlet that it is not common for the attorney’s office to fire a PR firm.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Moriarty for comment. She had previously said the hiring of PR specialists was justified because attacks from anti-reform prosecutors undermine the work of her office.
