Governor, counsel owe public a full accounting
Published July 21, 2015
Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, July 20, 2015.
Last week, after calls from our editorial board and those of the Charlotte and Raleigh newspapers, Gov. Pat McCrory pushed for the ouster of Paul Foley from the state Board of Elections over a conflict of interest in a board investigation. But one big question won’t go away: Why didn’t the governor do this long before?
The Associated Press reported late last week that “the chief legal counsel for Gov. Pat McCrory knew almost a year ago that Paul Foley's law firm had received more than $1.3 million in payments [for legal work] from the target of an investigation into questionable political donations. However, Bob Stephens didn't say anything to McCrory about the potential conflict of interest or other issues with Foley, a Winston-Salem lawyer ... McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis said.”
This wasn’t Stephens’ first problem as chief counsel. McCrory and Stephens owe us all a full accounting of this latest one. As The Charlotte Observer said in an editorial Sunday, McCrory “should either stop throwing [Stephens] under a bus, or he should dismiss Stephens for poor judgment and incompetence.”
News of the Foley issue broke several days ago when The Associated Press obtained a state attorney general’s report about it.
Foley, a Republican appointee to the board of elections from the Winston-Salem law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, at first resisted the governor’s call for his ouster, then resigned. This took part against the backdrop of a board of elections investigation into campaign contributions from Internet sweepstakes software magnate Chase Burns (who faces felony racketeering and conspiracy charges) to McCrory, state Senate leader Phil Berger, former state House Speaker Thom Tillis and other Republicans. Last week, the board of elections announced that its investigation of that issue found no violations. But this latest news puts a shadow over that finding.
Foley’s obliviousness to his obvious conflict of interest, even after his recusal from the matter, was mind-boggling. But now that Foley is off the board, it’s not the work of the rest of the members of the state Board of Elections and staff that troubles us, some of whom called Foley’s meddling to the attention of the state attorney general’s office. That office found no foul. The investigation found that Foley’s prodding and questioning didn’t harm the probe because the staff members responded properly.
What does trouble us is fact that the governor acted far too late on the Foley issue. McCrory and Stephens both work for us. They both us owe us a full accounting of what they knew and when they knew it.
Perception is everything in politics, and, most important, public trust. Good leaders respond quickly to problems of perception to retain the public trust. Gov. McCrory responded far too late to the conflict of interest in this case.
