Easley Saga’s New Twist

RALEIGH – The latest plot twist in the Mike & Mary Easley saga sure is a doozey.

One of the political responsibilities of freshman U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat, is to offer recommendations to the Obama White House for key federal appointments from North Carolina. Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican, will of course not be similarly consulted.

So a little over a month ago, Hagan assembled an advisory panel chaired by former N.C. Chief Justice Burley Mitchell and including former U.S. Attorney Janice McKenzie Cole, Boone attorney Anthony di Santi, and Greensboro attorney Locke Clifford. As recently as Sunday, the panel was reportedly moving forward to give Hagan a recommendation to replace U.S. Attorney George Holding, a Bush appointee who is currently supervising separate federal investigations of John Edwards and Mike Easley. From the Sunday N&O story:

Interviews were scheduled for last week and this one, and Mitchell said he expects to forward the name of a preferred candidate to Hagan by midweek. “We’re definitely working on those right now,” Hagan said in an interview Wednesday. “And hopefully within the next few weeks we can go forward.”

“The president has asked us to submit nominations for these positions, … so we’ve been working on this,” Hagan said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with any cases that are going on. But we’re certainly trying to move forward.”

But that was then.

On Wednesday, Hagan suddenly announced that she had advised President Obama not to appoint a new U.S. attorney in Raleigh until the Edwards and Easley probes are concluded. “I don’t feel it’s in North Carolina’s best interest to replace someone who is investigating these two very high profile people,” Hagan told reporters. “I just think that with investigations going on, he ought to have the opportunity to complete the investigations.”

That certainly sounds like a sensible position to take. I’ve heard similar sentiments from both Democrats and Republicans. But if it’s sensible now, it was sensible last weekend. Why did Hagan go from “moving forward” on a replacement Sunday to letting Holding “complete the investigations” on Wednesday?

Three potential explanations suggest themselves.

First, Hagan could simply have changed her mind. Politicians get to do that. After the Sunday story, there has been plenty of talk-radio and blogosphere chatter questioning the wisdom of replacing a federal prosecutor who is smack dab in the middle of bringing witnesses before a grand jury investigating the various allegations of corruption in the Easley administration. The new senator may have been persuaded it was in the best interest of justice to urge Obama not to intervene.

Second, and somewhat more cynically, Hagan, her advisors, and other powerful Democrats may have concluded that it was not in their political interest to replace Holding at the moment, however much they might want to. Whatever damage a potential Edwards or Easley indictment might inflict on other Democrats, greater damage might be done by seeming to interfere with these investigations – including potential damage to President Obama himself, who avoided a similar dilemma by deciding not to replace the U.S. attorney investigating former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

If the pick was going to be Judge Ripley Rand, reported Sunday as a likely nominee, the political risk would have been particularly great – given that he is the son of Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a longtime Easley ally.

Third, and most cynically of all, something may have gone haywire on Sen. Hagan’s advisory panel that made it impossible for her to act.

As the Greensboro News & Record first reported Tuesday, attorney Locke Clifford abruptly resigned from the review panel headed by Burley Mitchell. When reporter Mark Binker asked, Clifford declined to provide an explanation. Later on Tuesday, another reporter spotted Clifford’s car at the home of, you guessed it, Mike Easley.

Binker mentioned on his blog the rumor that Clifford may have been hired by Easley to defend him against a potential criminal indictment. I don’t know the nature of the Clifford-Easley relationship at this writing, but at the very least Clifford had managed to place Hagan, Mitchell, and other state Democrats in an extremely awkward position.

At worst, this story just became a little more film noir.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation