Creative Loafing: “Bev Perdue:It Takes a Thief?”

Yesterday, we brought you the story that Governor Perdue’s missing flight records from her 2008 gubernatorial campaign had mysteriously appeared in the form of a detailed Excel Spreadsheet.

Today, Tara Servatius at Creative Loafing, puts this news into perspective:

One of the ways that big donors funnel illegal campaign contributions to politicians is by “arranging” paid plane flights for them. (Candidates spend hundreds of thousands of dollars jetting around the state to raise money and campaign. It’s a major campaign expense.)

Candidates are supposed to disclose these flights by law; they are counted as contributions.

Former state house speaker Jim Black went to federal prison for swapping illegal cash in a bathroom. Trading cash for flight time for a candidate is the same thing, just one step removed. The campaign of Gov. Beverly E. Perdue did it 41 times (that we know of) without disclosing it. She says her campaign “forgot” to disclose them — all 41 of them.

Whether the planning for the flights took place in a bathroom is unknown. The guy who would know the most about them, the guy who drove the proverbial getaway car, wasn’t questioned by the State Board of Elections investigator. That’s because Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake blocked the board’s elections investigator from grilling Perdue campaign and staff manager Zach Ambrose about the flights.

Then Leake, who was appointed to his position by Perdue, went a step further. He and elections officials deleted the part of the investigator’s report that noted that she hadn’t been allowed to interview Ambrose, the guy driving the getaway car.

Then they put out a letter saying they’d found no evidence of wrongdoing by Perdue’s campaign. Case closed.

Read the rest of the article at Creative Loafing.

It’s time for change in North Carolina’s leadership. Help the NC Senate Republicans win in November.

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