OLYMPIA, Wash. — Candidate for Washington Attorney General Manka Dhingra has updated her campaign website twice to clarify her employment status with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
On June 20, King County Human Relations Director Heidi Parkington-Thal emailed Dhingra following the release of a campaign video on TVW.
In the video, Dhingra introduced herself as “deputy majority leader of the Washington State Senate, senior deputy prosecuting attorney with King County."
According to Parkington-Thal, Dhingra resigned as a prosecutor in 2021.
In an email sent to Dhingra, Parkington-Thal wrote, “It came to our attention through a news reporter that you are stating you are a current senior deputy prosecuting attorney with the KCPAO rather than a former senior deputy. Will you please correct this in your campaign materials?”
Dhingra initially refused to make any changes, saying she was considered to be on a leave of absence from the county.
Spokesperson Casey McNerthney said Dhingra is not on leave with the office.
On July 6, more than two weeks after Parkington-Thal's email, Dhingra's campaign changed her website’s biography to say she was on a leave of absence, but by Monday, July 15, the website and Facebook page described her as a “former” prosecutor.
The original TVW video remains online, and the word "former" has not been added to the campaign’s X homepage.
In an emailed statement from Dhingra, the candidate wrote:
"This is a semantic issue about how to describe the open invitation I have to return to my career as a Senior Criminal Prosecutor. We have used the term 'leave of absence' as a descriptor of my two-decade relationship with the office, not as a technical employment status. This distraction has been pushed by my opponents to diminish my career protecting families and communities, but I am still the only candidate in this race with the legal and legislative experience to stand up for the people of Washington."
Fellow Democrat and likely Dhingra's opponent in November Nick Brown said in an emailed statement, "Our next Attorney General, as the chief law enforcement officer for the state, must uphold the highest standards of honesty and transparency. That’s why it’s been so troubling to see that Senator Dhingra continues to claim to be serving as a prosecutor with the King County Prosecutor's Office, even though she hasn’t held the position in years. The prosecutor’s office has made it clear that she is not an employee nor on a leave of absence and asked her to set the record straight weeks ago."