Jason Ravnsborg's dedication to driving across the state led to his success and downfall, according to the producers of a new podcast about the former South Dakota attorney general.
Before Ravnsborg was involved in a fatal pedestrian accident, he defined himself by long drives to political and public events.
“One of the things I'm good at is driving,” Ravnsborg told a public meeting a few months before the accident.
Such details are woven throughout the podcast Short Walk, Lee Strabinger's deeply researched account of Ravnsborg's rise and fall. All nine episodes were released on multiple podcast platforms on Tuesday.
In 2020, Ravnsborg was driving home to Pierre from a Republican fundraising dinner in Redfield when he struck and killed Joe Bober, who was walking along a rural highway near Highmore.
Ravnsborg told investigators he didn't know what he hit and denied being distracted by his smartphone. He said he drove home that night in a rented car, but did not discover Ms. Bober's body until the next morning, when he returned to the scene of the accident.
Investigators said Ravnsborg was using his smartphone while driving. They also question Ravnsborg's story that no body was found the night of the accident, including that Bover's glasses were left in Ravnsborg's car after his face hit the windshield. Contains details.
Ravnsborg was ultimately impeached and removed from office in 2022 after pleading no contest to illegal lane changes and using a cell phone while driving, both misdemeanors.
Mr. Strabinger, a reporter for South Dakota Public Broadcasting, covered the case from start to finish and was still covering it last week when Mr. Ravnsborg went to the state Supreme Court to challenge the suspension of his law license.
Below is part of South Dakota Searchlight's interview with Strubinger for the podcast. Searchlight questions and Strabinger answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What's the value in digging deeper into this story and retelling it in episodic form?
I think it's worth taking a step back and saying, “Here's what happened,” because it was a very busy time for all of us at the time. Because at that time it was the new coronavirus. It was Trump's impeachment, it was Gov. Kristi Noem's rise to national prominence, all of those things. So he put it all in one place, just to take a little snippet of this particular story, so that people could sit and listen, and try to tell the story of what happened. I think there is still some misunderstanding about this whole thing. So this was an opportunity. To take a step back and tell a more complete story.
What misconceptions do you have?
People still tell me that he might have been drunk the night of the accident. He's covered national politics, so you can tell if he's had one beer. Because people talk a lot. It was a small enough incident that some of the people who were attending this particular event would have said, “Oh, he was drinking alcohol while there.”
And I think there was a realization that, “Of course they got rid of him because he killed that guy.''But we barely made it to the Senate trial, and even then, everything was in Ravnsborg's favor until it got to the Senate, and for the first article of impeachment, they barely approved it. [with no votes to spare on a vote that required a two-thirds majority].
Ravnsborg has rejected attempts by other Republicans to resign. The eventual release of investigative materials appears to have been partly aimed at putting further pressure on him. If he had resigned earlier, would some of these details have remained confidential?
Probably not. This is because the governor had promised to release the investigation files at an early stage. So, while it may or may not have happened, his defiance certainly didn't help him in that regard.
And one of the things that strikes me about this whole story is that the very things that helped him get to this particular point in his political career ended up being This resulted in his downfall. He was returning home from a Lincoln Day dinner. He went to Lincoln Day dinners around the state, explained the ballot question, and stood in front of the party leaders who would ultimately nominate him for the position, including running for the U.S. Senate. That's how I built my name recognition. And that's what he was doing that ultimately led to his downfall.
Has Ravnsborg ever expressed complete remorse for the accident?
I doubt whether he apologized to his family. One thing we don't know is the terms of the civil suit settled with him. [Joe Boever’s widow] Jenny Bober, that might involve an apology. I'm not sure.
There is a degree of remorse as he has stated that he is sorry the accident happened. It's an interesting apology, but one of the things he said at a recent hearing on the fate of his law license is that it's been 1,200 days since the accident, and he marked each day on his calendar and said, . Prayers for Joe Bober and himself. And the fact that Jason Ravnsborg starts his day every day thinking about this particular incident that happened in the blink of an eye really stuck with me. And I think that's definitely a window into something that he's going to spend the rest of his life grappling with, whether you call it a regret or not.
You dedicated an episode to Joe Bober, who died in an accident. Why was it important to you to do that?
I think I was very frustrated that I kept typing his name in news articles and not knowing anything about it. So one of the things I tried to do was to kind of understand what kind of person he was. Just to find out how he lived his life.
For example, people talked about him battling depression, and I wondered what that was like. It turned out to be quite different from what I initially thought. This person was reading a lot of philosophy, very well-read, thinking about their role in society, and was kind of an outsider, a bit of an outcast. So he thought it was worth telling a little more about who this person is.
On the night of the accident, Bober drove his pickup truck into a ditch and got a ride back to town. He then walked back to his pickup and was eventually struck and killed by Ravnsborg's car. Apparently we'll never know why Bober went back to his pickup that night?
I thought I had it combined. However, when the family ran the business, it seemed like they didn't really think about that. And we can never really know. The only indicators of how I felt about his truck situation were his depression medication and hand-rolled cigarettes. So I thought, maybe he was walking to his truck to get his stuff. However, he was walking back towards town and those two items were still in his car. That doesn't make much sense.
As part of producing the podcast, you went to the scene of the accident at about the same time on the night it happened. What was that like?
I tried to do something called stand-up on radio. And I tried to express something like, “Can you believe everything that led to this moment,” but at some point I had no words left. It was so hauntingly real to be there at that moment, just standing there listening to the crickets chirping, the weather was perfect, the sky was clear. And it was truly unforgettable.
There are so many layers to this story, politically, legally, ethically, and morally. What are the lasting lessons we can take from it?
I think one of the lasting lessons here is that in a one-party state like this, you have to face these kinds of unpleasant incidents when it comes to your own party members.
And I think I think a lot about Will Mortenson, and he's now the House majority leader, at the time, in his first term in office, when House Democrats in Congress were considering articles of impeachment. During that time, he filed articles of impeachment against the attorney general.To former President Donald Trump [drawing intense anti-impeachment criticism from Republicans]. Politically, the timing could not have been worse. But he stuck it out, and many praised his efforts in doing all of this. So the political lesson is to not be afraid to do the right thing.
Details of the Ravnsborg incident
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