Engling Wants Braun's Inspector General to Probe Morales. That Office Got a Morales Referral in March and Hasn't Said a Word.

Republican secretary of state nominee Max Engling. Photo: Max for Indiana campaign (official campaign portrait, offered for use in coverage).

Last March, the Marion County Election Board voted unanimously to hand Indiana's inspector general its findings on Secretary of State Diego Morales. In the seven months since, the public has heard nothing back. On Thursday night, the Republican who wants Morales's job said that same office should take charge of the full investigation into how Morales ran it.

Max Engling made the case during the final secretary of state debate, a one-on-one matchup with Democrat Beau Bayh at the FOX59/CBS4 studios in Indianapolis. Both men agreed the next secretary of state has to investigate the outgoing incumbent, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle. They split on who should do the digging.

"You need to have the person that actually has the authority to compel documents, to look at emails, to investigate dozens of people and make sure what the office has done is proper, or if not, hold it accountable," Engling said, arguing the inspector general would put the "full weight" of the state behind the probe.

Bayh wants something else: an independent audit led by Knox County Clerk David Shelton, a Republican and private investigator. "It's been a central promise of this campaign that I will conduct an independent audit of this office," Bayh said. Engling called Shelton a "friend" of Bayh's who lacks the expertise and the power to make state officials cooperate, Axios Indianapolis reported.

The inspector general answers to the governor

Indiana's Office of Inspector General isn't an independent branch of anything. Gov. Mike Braun appointed Jared Prentice to run it in January 2025, describing the office's mission as reducing "fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement and wrongdoing in state executive branch agencies." Prentice came from compliance work at the Department of Revenue, Elevance Health and Deloitte, according to the governor's announcement.

That office already has a Morales file. On March 6, the bipartisan Marion County Election Board referred its findings to the inspector general and the State Ethics Commission, WTHR reported. Attorneys from Faegre Drinker working for the board concluded Morales likely violated Indiana Code 4-2-6-17, which bars using state property and personnel for anything other than state business, by turning footage from an official visit to the county's election center into campaign material, The Indiana Lawyer reported.

Morales's campaign called the referral a "taxpayer-funded political fishing expedition" and said the footage had been posted publicly by the secretary of state's office months before any campaign ad used it. When reporters asked the inspector general's office about it, a spokesperson said the office doesn't comment on complaints or pending investigations.

The broader complaints about Morales go well past one video. He has been accused of spending taxpayer money on luxury vehicles and promotional materials, hiring family members and steering no-bid contracts to donors, the Capital Chronicle noted in its debate coverage. None of that has been resolved by a court or a public state report.

Why the referee matters

Engling isn't wrong that subpoena power and access to state email matter. But conservatives who've watched government investigate itself should ask a plain question: how much daylight will Hoosiers get from a process that, by the inspector general's own practice, stays confidential until it's finished, run by an appointee of a Republican governor, examining a Republican officeholder, at the request of a Republican successor?

Engling's own words give that question some edge. When he won the nomination at the June state convention, he told delegates he has "direct experience keeping elections strong and controlled by Republicans," the Capital Chronicle reported. He entered the race only after his boss, U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, and Attorney General Todd Rokita pulled their endorsements of Morales, and he beat Morales and Shelton on the second ballot.

Shelton's role cuts the other way. He's no Democrat; he finished second to Engling at that convention with 627 delegate votes to Engling's 867. Bayh is proposing to hand the keys to a Republican rival of the GOP nominee. Whether a county clerk running an audit could force anyone to talk is a fair question for Bayh to answer, and so is whether a report would be released in full.

The rest of the night

The debate turned personal. Bayh said Engling's campaign is running an ad "baselessly linking" his father, former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh, to Jeffrey Epstein, and said his father never met or spoke with Epstein. Engling said his team is suing Bayh for defamation over an ad that, in Engling's telling, misrepresents decades-old speeding tickets as reckless-driving convictions. No such lawsuit had been reported as filed as of Friday morning.

Both candidates pledged to serve a full four-year term rather than leave early for a bigger office. Both back Indiana's voter ID law and longer early-voting hours. Engling backs the federal SAVE America Act and floated color-coded state IDs to flag legal noncitizens; Bayh said county clerks should help clear ineligible voters and faulted state officials for prosecuting only one of 21 people a federal review flagged as noncitizen voters. Libertarian Lauri Shillings and Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard weren't on stage after missing the host's 10% polling threshold. State Affairs summed up the tone with two words the candidates threw at each other: "reckless" and "ridiculous."

Whoever wins on Nov. 3 inherits the Morales questions. The open one is whether Hoosiers will ever get to read the answers.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.