Pat McCrory remains silent as more reporting surfaces about the “renewed scrutiny” on GOP mega-donor and U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s involvement in a potentially illegal “straw donor” scheme circumventing campaign finance laws. NC Policy Watch reports this morning that Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman is reviewing findings submitted by a watchdog group that show “inconsistent giving patterns” to a few Republican candidates, including McCrory.

Why won’t Pat McCrory speak out against this potential wrongdoing?

Campaign finance records reportedly showed that some former DeJoy employees outside of North Carolina who had previously contributed “much less or close to none” to political candidates in their home states gave thousands of dollars to North Carolina recipients including the McCrory campaign. Bob Hall, former executive director of Democracy NC, said the contributions by some of DeJoy’s former employees followed: “a pattern that was similar to the patterns used by other top executives to use company money or family, their own money channeled through family members and employees who have been convicted by district attorneys of criminal wrongdoing.” 

“Failed politician Pat McCrory is still radio silent as he gets increasingly tangled up in a corruption scandal and refuses to take responsibility or stand up to the mega-donor behind this potential straw donor scheme,” said NCDP spokeswoman Kate Frauenfelder. “The evidence keeps mounting that Pat McCrory is just another insider career politician who looks out for himself and his rich donors, not regular North Carolinians.”

Key Points: 

• There has been renewed scrutiny of U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, as watchdog groups have identified irregularities in political contributions to former Gov. Pat McCrory and Sen. Thom Tillis. The contributions preceded DeJoy’s appointment as the head of the Postal Service, and involved his employees whom he allegedly reimbursed during his time leading his logistics business New Breed. 
• Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman is reviewing findings submitted by Common Cause NC, which show inconsistent giving patterns to a few Republican candidates, including  McCrory and Tillis, based on campaign finance records.
• “Louis DeJoy, his family and 60 of his employees donat[ed] $300,000 to Pat McCrory’s campaigns, mostly in clusters of large donations, while those employees gave under $8,000 to other NC candidates or committees during 30 years,” the letter to Freeman stated.
• Bob Hall, former executive director of Democracy NC, dug into the state’s campaign finance records after the straw donor allegations first emerged. In a letter he submitted to Common Cause last month, he noted that 54 New Breed employees donated more than $143,130 to Pat McCrory’s 2012 gubernatorial campaign, though only eight of them had previously made contributions greater than the disclosure threshold of $50, according to campaign finance records.
• Hall said the Wake County DA’s office’s initial review was incomplete without interviewing New Breed employees. He argued, some of the campaign activities seem highly suspicious to him.
• “It was a pattern that was similar to the patterns used by other top executives to use company money or family, their own money channeled through family members and employees who have been convicted by district attorneys of criminal wrongdoing,” Hall said.