{"id":57474,"date":"2025-12-10T16:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T16:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/57474\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T16:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T16:54:08","slug":"pennsylvania-lawmakers-subpoena-shapiro-over-home-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/57474\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania lawmakers subpoena Shapiro over home security"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Pennsylvania<\/a> Senate oversight committee on Tuesday authorized three subpoenas related to an investigation into how Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> (D-PA) allocated taxpayer funding for his security and travel expenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans on the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee overruled Democrats on the panel to approve the subpoenas, expressing concern <\/a>that at least $1 million \u201cin taxpayer money was quietly spent on modifying\u201d the governor\u2019s private Abbington residence in Montgomery County.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one disputes that the governor should have reasonable and appropriate protection, or that the governor should have access to transportation for reasonable and appropriate travel associated with his role,\u201d said Chairman Jarrett Coleman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut no administration, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to operate in the shadows and refuse to provide basic details about their decisions when millions of taxpayer dollars are being involved, and precedent is being set,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state expanded security<\/a> for Shapiro after an arsonist set his official residence at the governor\u2019s Harrisburg mansion on fire in April. Coleman said the Shapiro administration spent $32 million in upgrades to the public residence following the attack, in addition to the over $1 million spent <\/a>on a new security system and groundskeeping at the private Abbington home that is under investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two of the subpoenas<\/a> relate to Shapiro\u2019s Abington home. The first, to Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris, requests an independent security assessment of the governor\u2019s residence, as well as body camera footage from state police officers at the property from September through November.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers sent a second subpoena request to Abington Township seeking documents related to permits, applications, zoning, and other communications surrounding work at Shapiro\u2019s private property.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A third subpoena relates to Shapiro\u2019s flight records, requesting documents related to \u201cseveral charter flights arranged for the Governor\u2019s Office\u201d in mid-January. That subpoena booking records from charter flights, such as Passenger manifests, itineraries, and TSA screening confirmations for the flights taken from Jan. 14-16.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coleman said this week the committee sent requests to the Shapiro administration in August for information related to the answers he is seeking in the subpoenas, but had received only partial responses addressing the \u201cunprecedented\u201d security spending. He accused state and local agencies and officials of \u201cstonewalling\u201d for months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to the $32 million in upgrades to the Governor\u2019s Residence in Harrisburg, another $1 million in taxpayer money was quietly spent on modifying the governor\u2019s private home in Montgomery County. No one in the General Assembly was informed about this until Coleman began asking questions of the administration in October,\u201d a release from Coleman\u2019s office stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cArguably, we are in this position today because our laws and procedures do not address this situation. We as legislators can fix that,\u201d the Republican chairman added. \u201cWe need to evaluate if our laws, as they are written today, are enough to protect the governor and the taxpayers of Pennsylvania at the same time. I believe there is a place where those both can exist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats on the panel expressed concern that Republicans are weaponizing the committee against Shapiro.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The subpoenas are \u201can extreme in the investigative process,\u201d Democratic state Sen. Vincent Hughes warned, adding that lawmakers weren\u2019t \u201cinvestigative authorities in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis smells awfully of a witch hunt trying to find something that is not there,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the governor\u2019s office slammed the subpoenas this week, arguing that the Shapiro Administration has \u201crepeatedly responded to lawmakers\u2019 inquiries on this matter and publicly released a substantial amount of information about the security improvements.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

SENATE DEMOCRATS SETTLE ON THREE-YEAR OBAMACARE SUBSIDY BILL, DRAWING GOP JEERS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Governor Shapiro is speaking about political violence alongside the Republican Governor of Utah, Senator Coleman is once again showing clear disregard for the Governor and his family\u2019s safety \u2013 leveling partisan attacks through the press instead of working in good faith to protect the Governor and future governors while carefully stewarding taxpayer dollars,\u201d spokesman Will Simons told ABC News<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The records must be provided to the committee by 12:00 p.m. on Jan. 16, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pennsylvania Senate oversight committee on Tuesday authorized three subpoenas related to an investigation into how Gov. Josh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31,693,33,83,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-57474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-crime","tag-investigations","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-money","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}