That’s what the North Carolina Democratic Party would like state elections officials to do after the party “forfeited more than $24,000 to the state Board of Elections to ‘address
and resolve’ questions about the party’s role in past donations of
flights and gifts that are tied to the campaign of former Gov. Mike
Easley,” as The News & Observer reports today. The response from party chairman David Young about the illegal donations, and who in the party knew about what the intentions were for the money, was positively Oblinger-esque:
“We do not know that these contributions were improper,” Democratic
Party chairman Young wrote, “and until questions were recently raised,
had no reason whatsoever to believe that they might be improper.”…Young wrote in his letter that the “facts and circumstances” of the
contributions may never be known, but the party had decided to forfeit
the amount that matched the donations to end its part in any questions.
So the Dems would like to voluntarily choose their penalty and make the investigators go away. Nice.
Democracy North Carolina’s Bob Hall said, “I think it is on purpose. The lawyers will argue about
it, but an ordinary person would recognize that this was a way to game
the system.”
Of course it was on purpose, and given the Board of Elections’ recent experience with campaign shenanigans of this sort, I doubt they are doltish enough to let the Dems slide on it. But stranger things have happened.
