Texan Matt Langston has kept his campaign business running while collecting a six-figure salary as the Department of Education's chief policy advisor, though he rarely comes into the office.
Langston badged into the department's office on North Lincoln Boulevard on 27 days in 2023. In 2024, that dwindled to 11 days. And through June of this year, Langston worked in person on just four days, according to data obtained by Oklahoma Watch under the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
That's just 42 days in the office since Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters hired Langston in January 2023 and issued a directive ending telework for the agency's employees.
"He is a ghost employee," former state representative Mark McBride said after reviewing the findings.
Last year, McBride, along with other state lawmakers, asked the attorney general to investigate whether Langston was a ghost employee, which is a person on an organization's payroll who does not actually perform the duties associated with their position. The attorney general declined to investigate.
Since 2023, Langston's political consulting firm, Engage Right, worked for two Texas candidates, formed a political committee in Florida and sent campaign emails on Walters' behalf.
Langston managed Walters' 2022 campaign for state superintendent and joined the agency when Walters took office. That campaign is still active, though Walters hasn't announced plans to run for any state office in 2026.
Walters' campaign has made only one payment to Engage Right since the 2022 election. It was for $5,000 on March 4, 2024.
In January, Langston created a new political committee called MAGA Florida, according to records from the Florida Division of Elections. The committee reported two donations: $2,000 from Florida Council for Safe Communities, a nonprofit organization that advocates for safe families and communities; and $15,000 from One on One Communications, a company registered to Brett Doster, founder of Front Line Strategies, a political consulting firm where Langston and Matt Mohler, Walters' chief of staff, have both worked.
MAGA Florida sent mailers in February to promote two Republican legislative candidates. The mailers resembled voter guides and bore the logo of the state Republican Party, which drew a cease-and-desist letter from the party, according to Florida Politics.
Walters' Staff Also Working from Arkansas, Colorado and Michigan
Oklahoma Watch identified three other agency employees who live out of state; each reported working fewer than 40 hours per week. Two of them, like Langston, have little educational work experience but have stout political consulting resumes.
Typically, part-time, out-of-state workers are hired as vendors through the competitive bidding process, as Mary Vought was. The Department of Education hired Vought's D.C. area firm, Vought Strategies, last year to write op-eds and book Walters on national TV and radio shows at a cost of $5,000 per month.
Now, the agency employs, rather than contracts with, advisors in Colorado and Arkansas and a consultant in Michigan.
Lexi Swearingen, senior advisor for communications under Langston, lives in Colorado, and Chad Gallagher, whose title is senior advisor, works from Arkansas, according to internal agency documents obtained by Oklahoma Watch.
Swearingen co-owns a gun range with her husband, a county commissioner in Pueblo, Colo., according to news reports and her LinkedIn profile. Previously, she worked as a producer for CNN and Fox News, as well as the presidential campaigns of Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina and the 2016 Republican National Convention, according to a story in Shoutout Colorado.
She collected $16,900 from May to July, Department of Education payroll records show.
"He is a ghost employee."Mark McBrideGallagher is a consultant specializing in high-profile brand management and a longtime advisor to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Gallagher collected about $24,600 from March to July as a Department of Education employee, according to state payroll records.
Another out-of-state employee, Jordan Adams, is an academic standards consultant whose home office is in Michigan. Adams graduated from and worked as an instructional coach for Hillsdale College, the conservative, Christian liberal arts school. Adams has been paid nearly $122,500 since July 2024.
Gov. Kevin Stitt's return to work order doesn't apply to part-time employees and has limited exceptions for full-time employees. But Langston is full-time and is paid an annual salary of $150,000.
Langston did not respond to requests for comment. Quinton Hitchcock and Madison Cercy, spokespeople for the department, also failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.
Oklahoma Watch's previous reporting revealed hefty bonus payments to some agency staff, including Langston, who received an additional $32,000 in January. The department has refused to provide an explanation for the payment.
The Department of Education initially denied Oklahoma Watch's request for Langston's key card data and claimed it was exempt under an anti-terrorism provision that allows confidentiality of certain records, such as those related to schematics or security monitoring.
After the Attorney General this summer affirmed that the data is public and subject to disclosure, the department provided the data.
"Anytime an agency is saying, 'No, you can't see the records,' and is constantly dragging their feet to provide public information, it raises suspicions that there's incompetency, corruption, inefficiency," said Joey Senat, an Oklahoma State University professor and expert on Oklahoma's open records and open meeting laws. "Closed government is always where those thrive."
This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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