BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said Friday in response to an open records request that the email account of former attorney general Wayne Stenehjem was deleted after he died and the account and former Chief Deputy Attorney General Troy Seibel was deleted after he resigned.

Wrigley called the move concerning but not illegal.

He said Stenehjem's account was deleted by an employee in January, at Siebel's direction. Seibel's account was deleted in May, two months after Seibel quit following Wrigley's stated plans to appoint his own deputy, The Bismarck Tribune reported.

Democratic House Majority Leader Josh Boschee said the issue shows the need for “some sort of statute or policy to make sure we protect the integrity” of state officials' emails.

“The attorney general's office is involved with many legal matters on behalf of the state and we see how many lawsuits they sign on to with other states ... as well as issues with North Dakotans in the state,” Boschee told The Associated Press. “So you would think we’d want to have access to that information, whether it's to the benefit or the detriment of the state.”

Seibel told the Tribune that he doesn’t recall a conversation about Stenehjem’s email account. He also said he had no control over how his email account was handled after he resigned.

The revelation came to light when Wrigley had to respond to three open records requests about a $1.8 million cost overrun on the lease for the attorney general’s office when Stenehjem was in charge. Wrigley had to explain in his response why certain information was not available.

Wrigley took office in February after Gov. Doug Burgum appointed him to fill the remaining months of Stenehjem's term. Stenehjem died Jan. 28 at age 68 from cardiac arrest.

Seibel said the email accounts could have been deleted as standard procedure for when people leave the office. Maintaining every office record would pile up more documents to sift through for answering open records requests, he added.