Treg Taylor, a candidate for governor, participates in an interview in Anchorage on September 14, 2026. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor accepted $69,000 in travel-related gifts last year and failed to disclose them as required by law, according to a review by the Daily News. The trips included flights in 2025 with his family to Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Italy.

Taylor is running for governor but was temporarily kicked off the ballot earlier this month after the state campaign finance watchdog agency recommended he be removed for failing to disclose the names of his rental tenants as required of candidates by law.

Public records obtained by the Daily News show that Taylor also did not report to the Alaska Public Offices Commission a series of trips funded by two corporation-sponsored attorney general associations.

Taylor, who served as attorney general until he resigned in August of last year, accepted just over $50,000 in gifts from the Attorney General Alliance, an organization that Taylor chaired last year. Separately, Taylor accepted nearly $19,000 in gifts from the Republican Attorneys General Association to attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump, play in golf tournaments and attend meetings in Texas, North Carolina and Hawaii.

The trips took place in the first seven months of 2025, before Taylor resigned to launch his bid for governor. According to his calendar, Taylor took 26 days of personal leave for the corporation-sponsored trips, amounting to roughly one in every five working days in the months leading up to his resignation.

Alaska law requires candidates and public officials to disclose all gifts worth over $250 on a form known as the Public Official Financial Disclosure. The law is intended to discourage public officials from acting on private interests while in office, and to assure the public that officials are free of the influence of undisclosed private interests.

However, in disclosure forms submitted earlier this year and covering his 2025 income, Taylor and wife — who briefly planned to run for lieutenant governor — did not include details on the gifted travel they received.

Taylor said in an interview that he decided not to include the information on the advice of an attorney and accountant working for him.

In the disclosure form he submitted last year, Taylor included information on more than $40,000 in travel-related gifts he received in 2024 from the Attorney General Alliance and the Republican Attorneys General Association, including for trips to France and South Africa. But Taylor said this week that his campaign advisors told him that was not needed.

“I didn’t make this decision. It was a decision of the experts,” said Taylor. “They had the opinion that it wasn’t necessary. They had the opinion that I was overly disclosing.”

Taylor did not disclose the name of the attorney advising him.

Taylor was already reporting his sponsored travel in separate ethics disclosures required under a separate state law that calls on members of the executive branch to disclose gifts that could present a conflict of interest. However, those disclosures are rarely made public, while candidates’ financial statements are posted online for voters to review.

‘Work closely together’

Attorneys general around the country have for years faced scrutiny for taking lavish trips sponsored by companies, including corporations that could become the subject of litigation.

As chair of the Attorney General Alliance, Taylor helped orchestrate an August 2025 conference for the group in Girdwood. The last day of that conference was also Taylor’s last day as Alaska’s attorney general.

His leadership of the group has become a talking point in Taylor’s campaign. Taylor says that the fact that he was elected to lead the alliance suggests he worked well with both its Democratic and Republican members. In one candidate forum this month, Taylor referred to the alliance as a “bipartisan coalition” of attorneys, though the alliance has no formal governmental role.

The trips present opportunities for lobbyists and corporate interests to gain access to top attorneys, and for the attorneys to raise funds for political causes. In conjunction with the alliance conference in Girdwood, Taylor headlined a Girdwood fundraiser in which a political action committee supporting Taylor’s gubernatorial campaign asked for $100,000 in exchange for an evening in the company of Taylor and other Republican attorneys general.

Taylor said this week that the sponsored travel helped him collaborate with colleagues across the country in a series of lawsuits, including ones against pharmaceutical companies.

“Time after time, you’ll see my name on a litigation filing with multiple other attorneys general. That doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That happens because you work closely together,” Taylor said.

Taylor also said his relationships with other attorneys general supported his litigation against the administration of former President Joe Biden over resource development decisions.

Collaboration with other states “saved Alaska millions and millions of dollars,” said Taylor, who repeatedly asked Alaska lawmakers during his tenure to increase his budget for suing the federal government.

Taylor did not deny that the trips gave lobbyists for corporate interests access to him and other attorneys general, but he said that outside of such conferences, he made an effort to meet with anyone who sought his time.

“As the attorney general, I had an open-door policy. You wanted a meeting with me, I would make time for a meeting. It might not happen immediately, but we would put it on the calendar and we’d schedule it when it was appropriate. And so, anyone that wanted access with me had it. They didn’t have to go to a conference to get it,” he said.

2025 trips

Taylor’s packed 2025 travel calendar began with a January trip to Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, which paid for both Taylor and his wife to attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration. RAGA covered $3,500 in airfare for the couple and $900 for a hotel, for a four-night trip. Taylor reported taking one day of personal leave for the trip.

A week later, RAGA paid $2,372, including $1,600 for airfare, $600 for a hotel, $122 for meals and a $50 shirt. Taylor did not disclose the destination of the RAGA meeting, but it appears to be the association’s winter retreat in Austin, Texas. Taylor took three days of personal leave for the meeting.

In March, RAGA paid $3,327 for Taylor to attend a meeting. RAGA paid $750 for airfare, $500 for golf-related expenses, $1,200 for a hotel stay, $407 for meals, $270 for a golf travel bag and $200 for a sweater and golf balls. Taylor did not report the trip’s location, but it appears to be the RAGA spring golf retreat, which took place in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Taylor took three days of personal leave.

In April, RAGA gifted Taylor $2,130 to attend an energy summit. The gift included $1,000 for airfare, $900 for a hotel, $80 for meals and $150 to enter a golf tournament. Taylor took two days of personal leave. He did not report the trip’s location, but it appears to be in Houston, Texas.

Later that month, the Attorney General Alliance paid $22,643 for Taylor and his wife to travel to Rome. The trip included $14,378 in airfare, $5,236 for a hotel stay, $2,040 in meals, $490 in ground transportation and $500 for tours. Taylor took five days of personal leave for the trip.

In May, the Attorney General Alliance paid $6,487 for Taylor and his family to travel to Honolulu, Hawaii, including $2,028 in airfare, $4,289 for a hotel and $170 for meals. Tylor reported extending the trip thanks to a $4,529 gift from RAGA, which covered $4,229 for a hotel and $300 in meals to attend a meeting that took place in Oahu. Taylor reported four days of personal leave for the Hawaii trip.

In June, the Attorney General Alliance paid $21,101 for Taylor and his family to travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands. The gift included $15,000 in airfare, $3,950 for hotels, $961 for meals, $540 for ground transportation and a $650 registration fee. Taylor took five days of personal leave.

In July, RAGA gifted him $2,401, including $600 for airfare, $900 for lodging, $300 in meals and $600 in “fees.” Taylor did not report the destination of the trip, but it appears to align with the RAGA Victory Fund Golf Retreat in Pebble Beach, California. Taylor took three days of personal leave for the trip.

Taylor included the trips to Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands in an annual executive travel summary, but not the trips to Italy or other destinations in the U.S.

Taylor did not respond to a list of questions about the specific details of the trips from the Daily News.

According to ethics disclosures filed by Taylor, he accepted far more in travel-related gifts in the first seven months of 2025 than he did in all of 2024, when he reported just over $48,000 in travel-related gifts.

His 2024 travel included $24,300 for a trip to Normandy for him and his family sponsored by the Attorney General Alliance, and a $7,200 trip to Israel from the America-Israel Friendship League. In 2023, Taylor reported receiving just over $20,000 for him and his wife to travel to South Africa for an Attorney General Alliance-sponsored delegation.

Daily News and ProPublica reporter Kyle Hopkins contributed to this story.