The morning of April 27, 2023, Judge Noble held a show cause hearing to determine whether or not to move forward on charges of indirect contempt of court against assistant circuit attorney Chris Desilets and Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner for failing to appear for a scheduled trial in his courtroom three days earlier — in other words, for not showing up to do her job. Ms. Gardner did not appear for the hearing; she sent her personal lawyer as her representative. She was too busy to attend the hearing. She spent that entire morning at the Family Care Health Center pursuing her nursing degree.
We know this because an investigator with the Attorney General’s Office was shadowing her.
The law of holes says that when you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Of course, this advice only works if you recognize that you’re the cause of your problems. Gardner has never had the ability to recognize that she is the cause of all the problems that surround her. I’m sure it never occurred to her that to not appear at a contempt hearing for her previous failure to appear was problematic. Nor do I believe that she considered it imprudent to take the morning off and work on her nursing degree while her office is on the brink of collapse and the Attorney General is trying to remove her from office for dereliction of her duties.
Here is a typical Gardner supporter explaining — just this past April — why the hole Gardner finds herself in isn’t her fault.