Either the Attorney General’s office is reading our blog or someone brought my post last week to their attention, but Roy Cooper’s spokeswoman Noelle Talley sent this to me this morning:

Statement from Roy Cooper:

?Investigating these serious allegations is demanding and
difficult work, but it?s critical to preserving integrity in
government.  I?m proud of our SBI agents who?ve worked tirelessly
with federal agencies to investigate these matters.”

Background:

Today in federal court in Raleigh, former N.C. Speaker of the
House Jim Black pled guilty to charges of accepting illegal
gratuities.  Agents with the State Bureau of Investigation have
worked with IRS and FBI agents and the U.S. Attorney?s Office for the
Eastern District of North Carolina to investigate these allegations of
public corruption.  The SBI is continuing to work with the Wake
County District Attorney?s Office on related issues raised by the State
Board of Elections and alleged lobbying law violations.

SBI employees who worked on these investigations include
Assistant Director Erik Hooks, Assistant Special Agent in Charge W.
Randy Myers, Special Agent Chris G. Cardwell, Special Agent Tammie M.
Phillips, Special Agent Michael T. Denning, Assistant Special Agent in
Charge Kanawha Perry, Assistant Special Agent in Charge D. Steve
Wilson, and Lisa McCall.

In just the past five years, SBI agents have investigated more
than 270 public corruption cases involving all manner of public
officials, including a Council of State member, a member of Congress,
legislators, judges, district attorneys, sheriffs and other law
enforcement officials, county commissioners, city council members and
more.  Many of these cases involve thousands of hours of work by
the SBI.

Although many of these cases have resulted in successful
prosecutions, SBI agents have seen that witnesses have sometimes
withheld information or lied outright.  When an FBI agent is
present during an interview a witness can be charged with a crime,
since federal law makes it a felony to lie to federal agents. Attorney
General Cooper is asking legislators to make it a crime to lie to an
SBI agent.

Cooper is also pushing to allow state prosecutors to use an
investigative grand jury. This tool would allow state prosecutors to
convene a grand jury to question witnesses under oath, subpoena records
and deliberate evidence of wrongdoing by officials and would help root
out corruption at all levels of government.

Both proposals are included in Senate Bill 132 introduced last week.

Usually I don’t hear from Noelle unless it’s in response to a
request I’ve made to the Attorney General’s office. Still, this press
release does not appear on the Justice Department Web site which makes me wonder if it’s for selected eyeballs only.