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So: The State Board of Elections found the former aide's testimony more compelling than former Gov. Mike Easley's version of events. That sounds right. After four days of hearings, the board fined the governor's campaign $100,000 for not reporting airplane flights and sent what it believed may be evidence of criminal actions to the Wake district attorney's office.
It also ordered the state Democratic Party to give up $9,000 in contributions the campaign had solicited for the party to benefit Easley's candidacy.
The findings are a setback for the former governor, who is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into a wider set of issues including his purchase of coastal property and how his wife got a job at N.C. State University.
The elections board focused instead on political campaign activities. It subpoenaed dozens of witnesses, including Easley, who spent nearly five hours at the witness table Wednesday. The governor denied assertions by his former ally, businessman McQueen Campbell, that Easley encouraged him to file false invoices for reimbursement of repair work Campbell had arranged at Easley's Raleigh home. He said he had thought his campaign had fully paid Campbell for all the flights he provided and said Campbell's account "never, ever happened."
But Friday morning, State Board of Elections Chairman Larry Leake indicated the board believed otherwise: "This board has received evidence which, if believed, would tend to indicate that criminal violations of our election laws and campaign finance laws have occurred on the part of Mike Easley and perhaps others," Leake said.
Leake, a Democrat who was appointed to his post by Easley, also a Democrat, led the questioning of witnesses last week in an admirable performance that emphasized finding out what happened and sorting contradictory claims. Leake professed surprise at the former governor's insistence that he didn't know how much his home repairs cost and that it must have been Campbell who filed a claim for part of the work with Easley's insurance company. The fact is that the governor's story didn't make sense.
Now the board's findings go to a prosecutor for further investigation. Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby, a Democrat and close Easley friend, wisely recused himself. At Willoughby's request the Administrative Office of the Courts named veteran Rowan County District Attorney William Kenerly, a Republican, to take on the task.
The board's questioning during the hearings also showed that members believed the Easley campaign planned to focus fundraising on large donors who would give to the N.C. Democratic Party, which would keep a special account of money for the governor's use. Party officials denied they were part of such a scheme and the board did not find the party at fault.
But when legislators return to Raleigh next year, they should eliminate the temptation of future political campaigns to evade the spirit and letter of individual campaign contribution limits (currently $4,000 per election) by making donors to political parties observe the same limit. And legislators should make candidates responsible for paying fines levied by the elections board if their campaign committees are out of money.
Easley aide's subpoena?
In a ruling that some legal experts called bizarre, Wake Superior Court Judge Henry Barnette spared a top aide to Easley from testifying at the elections board hearings. To make his decision especially puzzling, the judge put his decision and the filings in the case under seal, saying only that the reason for quashing the subpoena was not attorney-client privilege.
Ruffin Poole, a lawyer who once served as counsel to then-Gov. Easley, had asserted attorney-client privilege and filed with Barnette a secret affidavit outlining his reasons for not wanting to testify.
That has led to this monumental absurdity: Public hearings called by the State Board of Elections to find out what happened during recent election campaigns and give the public a close-up view of what goes on in its democracy were undermined. Barnette's ruling let Poole escape testifying about his role in fund-raising last week without even telling the public why.
The court should not have gotten in the way of this fact-finding operation and a higher court agreed. Friday afternoon, the N.C. Court of Appeals stayed Barnette's decision, meaning Poole would have to appear before the board unless he successfully appeals to a higher court.
The appeals court is right on an issue key to the public's right to know.
