Top Beacon Hill lawmakers accused Auditor Diana DiZoglio of pursuing a “personal” audit of the Legislature in the face of potential conflicts of interest while the Methuen Democrat argued that her status as an elected official provides enough protections for an independent probe to occur.

DiZoglio, who has acknowledged that potential “threats” exist to her ability to impartially probe the Legislature, is trying for a second time to audit the House and Senate after Massachusetts residents overwhelmingly approved a ballot question in November giving her office the explicit authority to do so.

But Democrats in the Legislature have so far refused to participate, arguing DiZoglio’s legislative audit violates separation of power principles in the state constitution. House Speaker Ron Mariano took it a step further Monday by suggesting DiZoglio was making the audit “personal.”

“We have dealt with the personal attacks and the tweets and the comments,” he said at the State House when asked if DiZoglio should recuse herself from any legislative audits. “We’ve tried to keep this whole conversation very professional but it’s at the point now that she isn’t interested in getting a professional audit. She’s interested in her own personal attempt to audit the Legislature.”

In a brief phone call with the Herald, DiZoglio said “potential threats that could exist are mitigated” because she was directly elected by voters.

She also pointed to safeguards her office has put in place to reduce conflicts of interest, including keeping her away from the day-to-day work of investigating the Legislature.

“If I were appointed instead of elected, there could potentially be some concerns,” she told the Herald. “But because I am duly elected, and because I am not part of the legislative branch and part of a separate branch, those threats are mitigated. I’m happy to address these issues in a court of law before a judge, where I invite the Senate president and speaker to meet me to hash out these disagreements.”

In a series of forms she signed over the past three years, DiZoglio admitted that there are “threats” to her ability to impartially audit the Legislature because of her past work as a lawmaker and relationship with leadership in both branches.

But in the same documents, DiZoglio claimed she is able to direct a bias-free probe because of guidance her office received from a single virtual meeting with a federal agency in 2023 ahead of her first audit of the Legislature.

DiZoglio is only involved in the planning stages of legislative audits and the review of any final reports, according to a list of precautionary measures her office drafted after discussions with the U.S. Government Accountability Office nearly two years ago.

Senate President Karen Spilka said the forms DiZoglio signed — known as “Annual Independence Certification Forms” — prove “that there are strong potential conflicts in her request to do an audit of the Legislature.”

“She herself has acknowledged that a conflict has a strong potential to exist,” Spilka said. “I do want to remind people that the auditor herself, clearly, has acknowledged that strong potential conflict can be there.”

DiZoglio has increasingly criticized House and Senate lawmakers, including Spilka and Mariano, for refusing to participate in a legislative audit, including calling Mariano’s top deputies “henchmen” and accusing Spilka of running an “authoritarian regime at the State House.”

 Lawmakers have also criticized DiZoglio, with Spilka comparing her to President Donald Trump.

DiZoglio said he has a “constitutional right” to speak.

“It’s my job to audit. It’s my constitutional right to speak, and it’s my job to audit. And our office did everything that they needed to in order to ensure that independence forms were completed,” she told the Herald. “Our office did everything that they needed to in order to ensure that independence forms were completed. They were. This is the law. The excuses need to stop.”