Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office has lost another round in a nearly three-year fight to keep records sought in a request about the Mike Vereb scandal out of public view.
On Nov. 3, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court sided with Broad + Liberty and upheld an order requiring the governor’s office to release 12 withheld records, emails and their attachments. The office had appealed. In its filing, it said roughly 25 to 30 of the 43 or so pages involved should stay secret.
The fight started in December 2023, when Broad + Liberty asked for emails connected to Vereb, Shapiro’s former top legislative aide who resigned in September 2023 after a female deputy accused him of sexual harassment. The administration paid her $295,000 to settle.
The governor’s office first answered by arguing most of the request was too vague to fill. The state’s Office of Open Records disagreed, and a search turned up 254 pages, much of which is still locked away. Courts have agreed the office can keep back lawyer-client emails and some records tied to an investigation.
But on the pages in this latest fight, the office keeps losing. It argued they were private discussions among staff about decisions not yet made. The Open Records office looked at the pages itself, found they were mostly routine office business, such as processing a resignation, discussing job candidates and salaries, and drafting a letter, and the court agreed.
The breadth of the fight stands out, even if the records themselves may not prove explosive. The office spent more than a year in court fighting to keep these pages private, and the judges and the Open Records office have now said no, again and again.
Asked for comment, the governor’s office said only that it “has received the opinion and will continue to review it.” It could still ask the court to reconsider the Nov. 3 ruling or petition the state Supreme Court to take the case.
What’s still unanswered
The ruling is one piece of a longer effort to understand how the administration handled the Vereb complaint. Questions remain about the timeline. The settlement was signed Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 2023, and Vereb stayed on the job until Sept. 27. The administration has said Shapiro learned of the allegations while settlement talks were underway, and it has not explained why Vereb remained for weeks afterward.
Shapiro’s explanations of the timeline have shifted over time.
In 2024, as Shapiro was under consideration as Kamala Harris’s running mate, his spokesperson told the New York Times that the governor “was not aware of the complaint or investigation until months after the complaint was filed.” Pressed by this outlet, the administration said settlement talks had already begun by the time the governor learned of the complaint.
Shapiro later told Philadelphia magazine, in June 2025, that a human resources policy prevented him from being told about the accusations. Broad + Liberty followed up by requesting all relevant policies. When told that the policies didn’t prevent Shapiro from being told, the administration said the governor was kept out of the loop on a “need to know” basis. It has not said why the state’s top executive officer would not need to know.
In a gubernatorial debate in October, Shapiro said Vereb resigned immediately upon the conclusion of an investigation. Vereb’s resignation came nearly four weeks after the settlement.
A separate Right to Know case seeking email metadata (sender, recipient and subject lines) from two of Shapiro’s top aides ended in a split decision Oct. 9. The Commonwealth Court ordered seven redacted subject lines released but let the office withhold most of the others, including the subjects of investigations at other agencies.
The accuser’s email account is another open question. In a February 2025 court hearing, an attorney for the governor said the office no longer has her emails. A spokesperson later confirmed the account was deleted, and the office has not said when that happened.
Note to Readers: This story was reported entirely by Todd Shepherd. Drafts of this article were written with significant assistance from an AI writing tool. Shepherd reviewed, edited, and is responsible for all factual content.
Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports
