Pat McCrory seems pretty irritable these days. Yesterday, he got into yet another tiff with an AP reporter trying to get to the bottom of his latest debacle. The governor continues to respond with utter contempt to questions about the eye-brow raising payout he received from a mortgage broker whose board he sat on as he took office in 2013.
McCrory’s response since this story broke has been damning enough — the innocent are rarely so defiant. But his history of ethical shortcomings raises even more flags. We’ve already learned that he’s downplayed his ties to an internet sweepstakes executive under indictment, and that he had a financial stake in Duke Energy when they spilled 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan river after McCrory helped loosen their regulations.
It seems the more you dig, the more Pat McCrory conflicts of interests you uncover, so it’s no wonder he gets a little short when you start asking questions. Check out the latest, from the News & Observer:
McCrory has testy exchange with AP reporter about stock payout
Gov. Pat McCrory defended his actions surrounding a stock payout from online mortgage broker Tree.com in a testy exchange Monday with the Associated Press reporter who first reported it.
In a short news conference following a speech to the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, McCrory was asked to confirm that he’d received the payout valued at $171,071. He didn’t address the payment beyond replying with a “yes” and adding that “I stand by the facts that we presented to you, and those facts are clearly public information.”A McCrory spokesman said Tuesday that the governor has throughout the controversy made it clear that he received the payout, which was for his service on the board of directors at Tree.com.
McCrory also criticized the reporter, Michael Biesecker. “You continue not to correct your mistakes you’ve made in several articles, and that’s a sad commentary,” he said, prompting Biesecker to respond that AP is standing behind the story’s accuracy.
Biesecker continued to question McCrory but was cut off as the governor sought to take questions from other reporters. “Sir, you do not have the power to interrupt everyone else,” McCrory said.
After the story was published last month, the McCrory adminstration attacked AP, releasing a 34-page document outlining what it called the wire services’ mistakes in other articles on unrelated topics. The strong reaction nearly eclipsed the news from the original report.
Published: Jan 7, 2015