Wyoming House check investigation committee to begin work Thursday

CHEYENNE—The legislative committee tasked with investigating the handing out of campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor will begin its work Thursday afternoon. 

The House Special Investigative Committee will convene at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Capitol building’s Historic Supreme Court chambers. The proceedings are public and will be streamed on the Legislature’s YouTube channel. 

Multiple lawmakers are expected to testify before the committee, which has already sent out at least some requests.

The Wyoming House of Representatives unanimously voted Feb. 12 to create the investigative committee after Rebecca Bextel, a conservative Jackson activist, was photographed handing out campaign checks to lawmakers on the House floor after adjournment on the first day of the 2026 legislative session. 

Bextel, who has denied any wrongdoing, hand-delivered the checks on behalf of Don Grasso, the Teton County donor told a reporter. Grasso said earlier this month that the checks were intended for 10 Republicans, including: Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, Hulett; Reps. John Bear, Gillette; Marlene Brady, R-Green River; Gary Brown, Cheyenne; Christopher Knapp, Gillette; Tony Locke, Casper; Darin McCann, Rock Springs; Joe Webb, Lyman; Sen. Bob Ide, Casper; and former lawmaker, Mark Jennings of Sheridan. All 10 individuals have a tie to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. 

So far, four lawmakers have publicly confirmed they accepted a check from Bextel, including Neiman, who sought to absolve himself and other check recipients ahead of the investigation. 

“I’ll go to my grave knowing I didn’t do anything wrong. Not a thing,” Neiman said during floor debate last week on a motion to pause the legislative investigation. 

“There’s not a legislator in this House that did anything wrong,” Neiman said. 

Casper Republican Rep. Art Washut, the committee’s chairman, had recommended the pause to avoid interfering with the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, which launched a criminal investigation earlier this month. 

“All notions of justice and fairness require that the House’s investigation be delayed so that those persons under potential criminal investigation may be afforded all the legal protections available to them throughout that investigation,” Washut, a retired police officer, told the House on Feb. 17. 

The next day, the House voted 37-21 with four lawmakers excused against Washut’s advice. 

Neiman had not publicly disclosed his involvement in the controversy until days after WyoFile and the Jackson Hole News&Guide reported that Grasso wrote him a check. That came a week after word of the checks first became public. 

In his floor remarks, Neiman said Bextel handed him a check for $1,500 in his speaker’s office on the session’s first day. Bextel had called Neiman in January, he said, to tell him a Teton County donor wished to financially back his campaign. Neiman said he welcomed the support. 

“That’s what happened. Those are the facts,” Neiman said. “And I’ve kept them to myself because I didn’t want to screw up my committee because I respected these people that I chose because I knew they would do a great job.”

The motion to launch the investigation gave Neiman the responsibility of appointing the committee’s six members and one chairman. 

“And do you understand the difficulty I’m in? Because now I’m charged because of that motion, as speaker, I had to pick the committee to investigate me,” Neiman said.

Rep. Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, has said she was unaware of Neiman’s involvement in the controversy when she drafted the motion to launch the investigation. A now widely circulated photograph taken by Provenza showed Bextel handing McCann a check on the House floor. 

The motion directs the committee to “hear complaints and evidence as expeditiously as possible” and to conduct its proceedings in public sessions. 

“The chairman of the special committee shall have the power to administer oaths and to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents relevant to the contest, as authorized [by state law,]” the motion states. “Any testimony made at any special committee hearing or before the appropriate house which purports to establish matters of facts shall be made under oath.” 

The motion specifies that individuals called before the committee “may be represented by counsel and shall be afforded reasonable opportunity to be heard and to present oral argument.”

On the floor Monday, Washut reminded members, “if you received an invitation to appear before the investigation committee, please respond to those invitations before the deadline this afternoon.”  

The motion requires the committee to report its findings and final recommendation to the House no later than the fourth legislative day following the date the special committee was convened. 

Washut told WyoFile that the clock will start after the committee’s final meeting. Asked how many additional meetings he expected the committee to hold beyond Thursday, Washut said, “it’s hard to say.” 

Washut also said several witnesses would testify at the first meeting, but that he didn’t expect it to go late into the night. 

“It does not serve a purpose to exhaust everybody,” Washut said.