Gov. Polis Accepted More Than $55,000 in Free Luxury Guided Hunts From Wealthy Donors
The trips were gifts from wealthy outfitters and out-of-state benefactors; the governor's office says everything was properly disclosed, which addresses the paperwork and not the hospitality
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
DENVER — Gov. Polis accepted more than $55,000 in gifted hunting trips over the past year, according to his financial disclosures, including guided big-game hunts — bear and moose among them — underwritten by wealthy outfitters and out-of-state benefactors with an evident interest in the governor's goodwill.
The gifts came from donors who have provided the governor with hunts, firearms, and other outdoor hospitality repeatedly in recent years, a pattern the governor's office characterizes as a properly disclosed hobby and his critics characterize as a wealthy man's recreation being quietly paid for by people with business before the state. The Press's ethics desk notes that disclosure establishes that a gift was received; it does not establish that the gift was free.
The blind, The Press understands, was well concealed, which is more than can be said for the arrangement. A chief executive accepting five-figure hunting excursions from private interests is either an avid sportsman enjoying his lawful pastime or an official being courted one antler at a time, and the classification tends to depend entirely on the letter after his name.
Aides emphasized that the governor filed the required forms, an argument that concedes the trips and defends only the honesty with which they were logged. The Press's taxonomy desk confirms that a gifted luxury hunt is a scandal when the other party's governor is in the blind and a wholesome connection to the land when it is one's own, with no change to the price of the guide.
Reaction followed the standing choreography. Supporters saw a governor unwinding on his own time with longtime friends; opponents saw special interests renting access by the safari. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'transparency' and 'legalized bribery' — and swap it, blind by blind, whenever the other side is the one holding the borrowed rifle.
The trophy antlers, reached for comment, declined to say who paid for them.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) accepted more than $55,000 in gifted hunting-related trips in a single year per his financial disclosures, including a guided spring bear hunt and guided fall moose hunt from an Alaska outfitter valued between $50,000 and $100,000, plus gifted hunts and firearms from wealthy out-of-state (Texas) benefactors who have given him such gifts repeatedly. His office says the gifts were properly disclosed.