Amateur hour continues in Raleigh

Thomas Stith sure sounded confident when he leveled serious charges about Ken Rudo’s integrity two months ago. Now it appears Stith didn’t know what he was talking about.

Stith is Gov. Pat McCrory’s chief of staff. Rudo is a state toxicologist who has said the McCrory administration misled some N.C. residents about the safety of their water.

In an unusual move, Stith called a late-night press conference with little notice on Aug. 2. He wanted to refute Rudo’s claim, made in a deposition under oath, that Rudo had been summoned to a meeting at the governor’s office about groundwater near Duke Energy coal ash pits, and that McCrory had participated in the meeting.

“We don’t know why Ken Rudo lied under oath, but the governor absolutely did not take part in or request this call or meeting, as he suggests,” Stith said that night. He later added: “We wanted to make it crystal clear, we’re not going to stand by idly while individuals make false statements and lie under oath.”

That’s a grave allegation, impugning the character of a man respected in his field for three decades. Rudo’s boss, Megan Davies, resigned from her $188,000 job to protest how the state was handling water-safety warnings. So surely Stith was familiar with the details before unleashing a charge of perjury?

No. Lisa Sorg with N.C. Policy Watch, a liberal advocacy group, reported this week that Stith’s own deposition reveals he never read Rudo’s testimony before eviscerating it. He never talked with legal counsel. And he did not go over details with McCrory about McCrory’s call into the meeting.

Stith said it was his idea to hold the press conference because he thought Rudo’s information was inaccurate “based on what I was told” by Josh Ellis, McCrory’s communications director. He said he talked to McCrory about holding the press conference and the governor told him to “use your judgment. Do the right thing.”

Stith was not at the meeting in question and so has no first-hand knowledge of what happened. “My understanding is the governor did not participate in the meeting,” Stith said in his deposition.

It is extraordinary that a governor’s chief of staff would call a press conference and accuse a respected toxicologist of lying under oath when he has no first-hand and very limited second-hand knowledge of what happened.

But it’s just the latest example of McCrory and his administration bumbling into avoidable mistakes amid a tough re-election battle. For example, state law bars candidates from coordinating with independent political groups. Yet McCrory planned to speak at a fundraiser hosted by such a group, Real Jobs NC, on Friday. That sparked concern at the state Board of Elections. (McCrory’s plans changed because of Hurricane Matthew, his camp says.)

And last month, McCrory’s campaign planted questions at a Charlotte event that were portrayed as coming from the public.

Rudo, the toxicologist, says he is a Republican who voted for McCrory in 2012. He is surely just one of thousands who now regret it.

This story was originally published October 7, 2016 at 5:49 PM with the headline "Amateur hour continues in Raleigh."