PSC Finds Molnar Violated Conduct Policies, Damaged Agency
Molnar said PSC biased against him, lawyer said PSC ‘corrupt’
By Keila Szpaller, Daily Montanan
Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar committed “serious misconduct,” including unwelcome sex-based comments in the workplace and retaliation against those who filed reports about his behavior, according to a report by an internal response team.
“Findings (independent and internal) confirm that Commissioner Molnar committed serious, repeated violations of agency policies and state law,” the report said. “Additionally, his obstruction and retaliation resulted in organizational harm and increased costs. His lack of accountability continues to expose the agency and the State to high risk of further misconduct.”
Read the report
It begins on page 260 HERE
Wednesday, the Public Service Commission voted 3-2 to accept the report’s findings and recommendations, including that Molnar be relegated to remote work.
But Molnar said the findings are biased and lack merit, and his lawyer said the timing shows the PSC is only trying to block Molnar from fully participating in next week’s hearing on a controversial $15.4 billion proposed merger between Northwestern Energy and Black Hills Corp.
Lawyer Matthew Monforton said the last complaint filed against Molnar was in October 2025, and the PSC waited seven months to “drop the hammer” on him. He said the allegations are a pretext to keep him out of the meeting room.
Molnar voted against a proposed NorthWestern Energy merger in 2007, and he has raised concerns about the current proposal.
“They waited until days before the merger hearing in the middle of May 2026 to bar Commissioner Molnar from the most important hearing that the PSC will be having in years,” Monforton said. “ … There’s obviously no coincidence.”
The report, by the PSC’s internal “response team,” includes findings from a firm, CMS, hired to conduct the investigation into misconduct; actions the PSC took in response to complaints, including counseling for Molnar; and it characterizes Molnar’s response to calls for correcting his behavior as “belligerence and defiance.”
A PSC policy describes the “response team” as made up of the PSC president and three staff members — the executive director, chief legal counsel and human resources officer. Because Molnar had served as president and was subject of the allegations, PSC Vice President Jennifer Fielder served on the response team instead. (Membership changed over time due to personnel transitions and recusals, a PSC spokesperson said.)
Molnar most recently took office with the Public Service Commission in January 2025, and his colleagues elected him as president. The PSC is made up of five elected commissioners, currently all Republican.
But in July 2025, Molnar announced he was under investigation for “unprofessional conduct,” and he described the specific incidents of which he was aware as petty. He said he was only guilty of being “a redneck wearing a white shirt.”
The report, however, said misconduct by Molnar has been “pervasive since February 2025,” includes seven reports with formal allegations, including “repeated and unwelcome sex-based remarks; demeaning, disparaging or hostile language toward staff;” and retaliation.
“Collectively, the reports, investigation, and other observations reflect a sustained pattern of unprofessional, disruptive, policy-violating conduct — not isolated or inadvertent behavior,” the report said. “Commissioner Molnar has shown little interest in acknowledging or correcting his misbehavior.”
The report also includes recommendations for action, including that Molnar apologize or face censure by the PSC. Wednesday, after discussion about the findings and a tongue lashing from Fielder about the damage Molnar had done to the agency, the PSC voted to adopt the report.
The vote includes authorization for the response team to hire other professionals to produce “supplemental information” and to pay legal counsel to recover court costs from Molnar. The report cites the total cost related to the investigation at more than $65,000.
(The report said initial estimates were $5,000, but Molnar’s “uncooperative and retaliatory actions” led to more complaints and added cost. It outlined the costs as $22,749 for CMS, Communications and Management Services; $17,578 for Christensen and Prezeau PLLP, a Helena law firm; and $24,704 for Boone Karlberg, a Missoula law firm.)
Commissioner Randy Pinocci joined Molnar in voting against adopting the report after Pinocci’s move to postpone consideration of the report until June failed.
From May to July 2025, the report said multiple complainants had filed misconduct allegations against Molnar, including “disrespectful treatment of staff,” and it said in summer 2025, Molnar threatened retaliation, including a statement that he would “take down anyone involved.”
The report said managers received additional reports “of alarming behavior and workplace safety concerns” from August to October 2025, and three additional “formal complaints” of retaliation. It said employees adjusted schedules and work locations “to avoid perceived danger.”
In the last few months, Molnar has said he was never presented with specific information about the allegations, such as times and places, in order to have the opportunity to refute them. In October 2025, the PSC ousted him as president, citing disruption.
At the meeting this week, Fielder said she repeatedly tried to help Molnar avoid the trouble he found himself in, but he refused to accept the help. The report notes Molnar received agency-wide trainings on internal policies and Equal Employment Opportunity laws in 2025, and agency managers counseled Molnar specifically in early 2025 to stop making “unwelcome sex-based remarks in the workplace.”
“All you did was blame other people for it and make up excuses for what this was about, never accepting that it was about your actual behavior,” Fielder said.
She said Molnar failed to remedy the situation when given the opportunity, and rather, escalated the problems by retaliating against those who came forward to file complaints against him — “good people in this agency.”
“The damage that you have done with your conduct is undeniable,” Fielder said.
The report noted a couple of complaints Molnar filed against Commissioner Annie Bukacek, one with the Commissioner of Political Practices and one with the Board of Medical Examiners, were retaliatory given their lack of evidence, timing and eventual dismissal. (Bukacek is a medical doctor.)
In her lengthy remarks, Fielder defended Bukacek in particular, and she said Pinocci contributed to the problem. Fielder said the person who filed the complaint to the medical board is an affiliate of Molnar and Pinocci and the person cited them as the only two people having evidence for the allegation.
“You’ve put her (Bukacek) through hell because she complained about you,” Fielder said. “That is retaliation, and you both should be ashamed of yourself.”
At the meeting, Molnar said “everything in the report is hearsay,” the commission is “biased against me,” and the “star chamber” process was rigged from the start.
“They’ve been hunting for my head for more than a year,” Molnar said.
The report outlines recommendations, including that Molnar acknowledge misconduct and “issue a sincere public apology” and agree to follow the internal policy manual. It recommends he complete remedial trainings, including on sexual harassment, “civility standards,” and Robert’s Rules of Order, “emphasis on order and decorum.”
The report also recommends the PSC censure Molnar if he fails to demonstrate a “good faith effort” to execute on the actions in the report, that it limit him to remote work, and that it monitor his actions for compliance and expedite “tools to address any further misconduct.”
In August, Fielder, on behalf of the response team, sent a letter to Gov. Greg Gianforte asking him to suspend Molnar, alleging interference in the investigatory process. In Montana, the governor may suspend a commissioner for “good cause.”
In December, Gianforte declined to suspend Molnar, stating a lack of “good cause,” but he said his decision did not excuse alleged misconduct. Gianforte also urged the response team to continue its investigation.
The report recommends the PSC again ask Gianforte to suspend Molnar, at least until Molnar has completed the actions in the report, and at most for one year, the term “commensurate with the period of harm and disruption Commissioner Molnar has caused in the workplace.”
Thursday, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Office said Gianforte had not yet received such a request from the PSC. A spokesperson for the PSC said any future request would be made consistent with the recommendations in the report.
Molnar, however, already has been directed to vacate his office at the Public Service Commission, where the merger hearing is scheduled to take place starting May 12. The proposed merger has raised questions about whether it would lead to more data centers, and higher costs for Montanans.
“Most of the PSC members intend to saddle Montana ratepayers with this merger and facilitate unbridled construction of data centers,” Monforton said. “Brad Molnar is the only one standing in their way, which is why he will not be in the hearing room on Tuesday.”
But Monforton said Molnar did nothing to deserve being barred and “having the voice of his voters silenced.”
“The Montana PSC is the most corrupt regulatory agency in the nation,” Monforton said.
