The Wilmington Journal has an interesting story on Sen. Kay Hagan’s abrupt dismissal of two African-American staffers after the NAACP confirms it’s also doing some digging.
Hagan remains silent behind her mouthpiece Colleen Flanagan. That’s one thing, but the big problem is former staffer Fred Aikens is still waiting for Hagan to tell him why he was fired the day after he was hired:
”[Sen. Hagan’s] got to tell me something,” Aikens, a Wilmington native, told the Journal two weeks ago. ”I want to know who said what, when they said it, what they said, and why wasn’t I allowed an opportunity to [defend myself].
….”She knew me. She knew me from [state] legislative circles,” Aikens said. ”I don’t know what she’s thinking or why she would let somebody turn her against me. It’s beyond me.”
”Somebody must have some mighty strong political power.”
NC Spin’s Tom Campbell speculated back in February that NC National Guard Adjutant General William Ingram had something to do with Aikens’ dismissal. Note the interesting details involving a lawsuit in which Aikens and Ingram were embroiled:
In that lawsuit, which was dismissed on a technicality in US District Court last November, Aikens alleged that Ingram and another officer ”…authorized and directed others under their command to hack into [Col. Aiken’s]…email account…for purely personal reasons” while he was deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq in 2003.
Even though some of the emails reportedly contained private, unflattering statements about Gen. Ingram between Aikens and another officer, Aikens maintained that Ingram had no right to have his private messages intercepted because they were on a federal server beyond North Carolina authority.
Anyone else notice the similarity to the Scott Sanders trial here in Greensboro, where Sanders was accused of hacking into a fed computer being used by a Greensboro police officer? Evidently Ingram had reason to believe Aikens wasn’t on the up-and-up. No matter what the beef between Aikens and Ingram is, the burning question is why Aikens was good enough to help get Hagan elected but not good enough to hang with her in Washington.
