An audit released this week found evidence of corruption in how contracts were awarded at the Tar Creek Superfund site in Oklahoma. Gary Jones, the state auditor and inspector who wrote the report, submitted it to then-Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt back in January 2014. But Pruitt inexplicably refused to release it.

Pruitt’s successor, Mike Hunter, had also refused to release the report since he began serving as attorney general after Pruitt left the job in February 2017 to become administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. But on Monday, facing a lawsuit demanding the release of the audit, Hunter changed his mind.

The audit, which looked into wrongdoing by a trust set up by the state to buy homes in two lead-contaminated towns in the Superfund site in the northeast corner of the state, found “considerable circumstantial evidence that a conspiracy may have existed” and irregularities with the bidding process that resulted in a contractor getting a windfall of more than $1 million.

At the heart of the improprieties described in the report is a man named Jack Dalrymple, the manager of the trust set up to raze the homes and businesses in Picher and Cardin. Both towns are set amid lead mines that posed such significant health threats to the residents that the buildings were to be demolished. Although the original bid for the work came in at less than $600,000, the trust run by Dalrymple wound up paying $3.4 million for the work to a carpet cleaning company that had none of the heavy equipment necessary to do the job and little experience with demolition, according to the audit.

The report concluded, “We believe the above provides sufficient circumstantial evidence for additional investigation into a potential conspiracy against the state.” Yet, Pruitt never investigated or pressed charges when he was attorney general — nor did he inform the public of the report’s findings.

The four-year delay in releasing the information has been frustrating to Jones, the state auditor and inspector. “The citizens have a right to know,” said Jones. “Our job is to provide accountability. But how can you provide that when your work’s not made available?”

For the rest of the country, the operative question is why the former Oklahoma attorney general and current administer of the EPA refused to release the report in the first place. An article in Politico floated the theory that Pruitt might have wanted to protect Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who endorsed and got funding for the trust, which used public money to buy people’s homes and businesses.