Republican Gov. Spencer Cox and Utah's top legislative leaders ordered an independent investigation Friday into Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen, citing unresolved questions about her alleged relationship with an attorney who helped overturn the state's Republican-drawn congressional map.
The probe targets allegations that Hagen exchanged "inappropriate" text messages with attorney David Reymann, the same lawyer who represented progressive voting rights groups in a redistricting challenge that ended with a unanimous ruling tossing out the GOP's four-seat congressional plan in July 2024. That ruling, Fox News Digital reported, led to one of those seats flipping blue in time for the 2026 midterms.
Cox, Senate President Stuart Adams, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, all Republicans, announced the new investigation in a joint statement after the state's Judicial Conduct Commission ended its own preliminary review without taking further action. The three leaders said that initial review "left important questions unresolved."
The allegations originated with Hagen's ex-husband, who filed a complaint with Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and the Judicial Conduct Commission. The complaint accused Hagen of having an unethical relationship with Reymann, who had argued the redistricting case before the very court on which she sits.
The Judicial Conduct Commission, described on its own website as an independent body made up of state lawmakers, judges, and members of the public, conducted a preliminary investigation. Local outlet KSL reported that the commission's complaint and interviews found Hagen and her husband began discussing divorce in September 2024, that Hagen and her husband had interacted together with Reymann toward the end of that year, and that Hagen did not meet one-on-one with Reymann until 2025.
The commission chose not to pursue the matter further. Hagen herself said the commission "reviewed the matter, dismissed the complaint, and closed the case."
But that conclusion did not satisfy state leaders. Questions about judicial accountability, particularly when a high court's integrity is at stake, are not the kind that disappear simply because an internal review panel declines to act. The pattern is familiar: an institution investigates itself, finds nothing actionable, and expects the public to move on. This time, elected officials pushed back.
The broader question of whether the judiciary can police itself has surfaced repeatedly in recent months. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, for instance, urged Chief Justice Roberts to investigate Justice Jackson's conduct at the Grammy Awards earlier this year, raising similar concerns about justices and ethical boundaries.
The Utah Supreme Court issued a public statement on Hagen's behalf Friday afternoon. In it, Hagen insisted she never had a conflict of interest and laid out a timeline she says exonerates her.
Hagen stated:
"My last involvement in the redistricting case was October 2024."
She added that she voluntarily recused herself from all cases involving Reymann in May 2025, and that her recusal "was reflected in the Court's September 15, 2025 opinion in League of Women Voters."
In a longer statement, Hagen described her own response to the allegations as proactive and transparent:
"I took prompt, prudent, and transparent steps in response to the allegations made by my ex-husband, including reporting them myself to the Judicial Conduct Commission and submitting a sworn statement. The Judicial Conduct Commission recently reviewed the matter, dismissed the complaint, and closed the case. I remain committed to upholding the highest standards of judicial ethics, integrity, and impartiality."
Reymann has also denied the allegations, though S1 does not include a direct quote from him.
The stakes here extend well beyond one justice's personal conduct. Hagen joined a unanimous decision in July 2024 to throw out a Republican-friendly redistricting plan that had preserved four red congressional seats. Progressive voting rights groups, represented by Reymann, had challenged the map. The court sided with the challengers.
The result: one of those four seats flipped to Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms. For Utah Republicans, and for the voters who elected legislators who drew that map, the ruling carried real consequences. If the justice who participated in that ruling had a personal connection to the attorney arguing the other side, the legitimacy of the entire decision comes into question.
The Washington Examiner reported that the controversy is tied to the Proposition 4 gerrymandering dispute and that state leaders moved to open the independent investigation after the Judicial Conduct Commission's preliminary review ended without resolution.
It is worth noting that Gov. Cox himself appointed Hagen to the bench. That makes his decision to launch an independent probe all the more significant, he is not settling political scores against an adversary's appointee. He is holding his own pick accountable.
Cox has not shied away from consequential decisions involving the state's high court. He previously expanded the number of seats on Utah's Supreme Court, a move that drew its own share of attention.
The joint statement from Cox, Adams, and Schultz framed the investigation around public trust:
"Allegations of this nature, especially involving public officials, must be examined with transparency and accountability to establish the facts and to maintain public confidence."
The leaders also said they would "move forward with an independent investigation to ensure the facts are fully examined."
Several questions remain open. What was the exact nature of the "inappropriate" text messages? When precisely did any personal relationship begin relative to the redistricting proceedings? Did any contact between Hagen and Reymann, even indirect, social contact that included Hagen's then-husband, create a conflict that should have triggered earlier recusal? And why did the Judicial Conduct Commission close the case without resolving these questions to the satisfaction of the state's elected leaders?
The structure and scope of the independent investigation have not been fully detailed. But the fact that it exists at all signals that Utah's Republican leadership views the Judicial Conduct Commission's review as insufficient.
Fights over judicial conduct and the political composition of courts have become a recurring feature of American governance. Nationally, the U.S. Supreme Court is weighing election-related cases that carry similar weight for voters who expect courts to remain impartial arbiters rather than political actors.
Hagen's timeline may ultimately check out. The Judicial Conduct Commission's decision to close the case may prove correct. But the appearance of a conflict, a justice participating in a landmark redistricting ruling while allegedly exchanging inappropriate messages with the winning side's attorney, is precisely the kind of fact pattern that erodes public confidence in the judiciary.
The Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City houses the Utah Supreme Court and various lower courts. It is supposed to be a place where the law applies equally, where outcomes are determined by legal argument rather than personal relationships. If the allegations against Hagen prove true, a unanimous ruling that reshaped Utah's congressional delegation may have been tainted from the start.
Accountability investigations involving powerful government figures are never comfortable for the institutions involved. They are necessary anyway.
When a court investigates itself and declares the matter closed, and the state's governor and legislative leaders respond by launching their own probe, that tells you something. It tells you the people who answer to voters are not satisfied that the people who answer to no one got it right.
