NC House Speaker Tim Moore Has a New Scandal

The headline above is not the only point of what follows. A Democrat filed against Speaker of the House Tim Moore in the NC House District 111. That Democrat so far is all but invisible. Too bad, with such a spectacle of insider corruption erupting on the incumbent.

First, the Newest Accusation Against Tim Moore
Tim Moore's apparent and alleged use of his official position to further his own financial gain is all over the morning papers in Raleigh. It doesn't look good. Moore, of course, is blaming the media and "liberals" out to get him. Here's a summary of the new scandal (hattip Thomas Mills):

Tim Moore as college student.
The Daily Tar Heel

The complaint has to do with property in Siler City that Moore and some business partners bought in 2013. According to the AP, “The complaint accuses Moore of improperly intervening with [the Dept. of Environmental Quality] DEQ so a limited liability company he co-owned could avoid fines related to underground fuel storage tanks where the former Townsend poultry plant stood.” Moore and his partners bought the property for $85,000 in 2013 and sold it three years later for $550,000. All of this during the administration of Pat McCrory, and his DEQ chief --  Donald van der Vaart, "who is now under consideration for a top environmental post in the Trump administration. He frequently said while leading DEQ that he wanted the department to be more 'customer-friendly' to businesses it interacted with."

If this complaint against Moore turns out to have merit, wrong-doing by high DEQ officials under van der Vaart would have included deliberately sending misleading emails to create a falsified papertrail to cover their tracks of special dealing for Tim Moore. That's clear in the long NandO piece this morning.

Second, This Is Not Tim Moore's First Rodeo
In August 2015, it came to light that Tim Moore had been appointed Cleveland County Attorney by a Board of Commissioners led by Tim Moore's own cousin, a partial sinecure worth $25,000 per annum --  $25k, whether he did a lick of actual work or not. Because as Speaker of the House, Tim Moore would have to be in Raleigh for sometimes months on end, so any legal business for Cleveland County would have to be handled by other lawyers paid their fair market rate. You know what a sinecure is, right?

But presumably Cleveland County could reap the benefits in hard cash, as indeed they did when Moore funneled millions in support and grants to projects in his home county. Moore became an accomplished pork-barreller.

Late in 2015, WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner outed Moore for flagrantly ignoring campaign finance reporting rules, and by January of 2016 Ochsner was hot on Moore's trail for paying campaign rent to himself. ("Speaker Tim Moore: Big Spender But Not So Great at Reporting It")

Tim Moore is naturally interested in Tim Moore above everything else, but sometimes unnaturally (or unethically) he acts on that impulse, and uses his official position as leverage. He went to Raleigh as a kind of po' boy, but look at him now. Thomas Mills quotes a person from Cleveland County who said, “Tim left for Raleigh driving a beat up Honda and he’s come back driving a Maserati.”

Now May We See the Democrat, Please?
Days ago I saw that one David Brinkley, a Democrat, had filed on the last day of filing, February 28, to oppose Tim Moore in November. Immediately Googling, I found pages of memorials to NBC newscaster David Brinkley, dead in 2003, and one link to "Who Filed in Cleveland County" in the Shelby Star, which gave me this, sum total: "A Democratic candidate has also filed to run for the N.C. House of Representatives District 111 seat. David C. Brinkley will face incumbent Republican and Speaker of the House Tim Moore during the November election."

Otherwise, no information on who David Brinkley is and what he does and what he's done in the past or what he thinks about important stuff today, and a "Hey, vote for me" campaign presence. Nothing like that at all. No website, no Twitter account, no nuttin'. (I did find his Facebook page eventually, after the following detours into an otherwise meager biography:

David Brinkley was founder of Brinkley Financial Group in Kings Mountain, a town in Cleveland County. Brinkley earned a Batchelor of Science in Education at Western Carolina, tried teaching and soon discovered he couldn't make a living for a growing family on a teacher's salary, so he entered the financial services industry with the Big Boys, spent a couple of years learning, and then came back to Cleveland County and founded Diversified Business Concepts, which became Brinkley Financial in 2006 -- David C. Brinkley Founder and President. It's an investment counseling and financial management company, and he appears to have done well.

Brinkley and his wife Marie are deeply embedded in the community. They're generous donors to local causes, especially educational enhancement and local high school athletics. He is actively involved in Central United Methodist Church of Kings Mountain serving as chairman of the Endowment Fund and Finance Committee. He is also a member of the Administrative Council for Central United Methodist Church, serves on the Advisory Board of the Life Enrichment Center, and is a charter member and president of the Kings Mountain Touchdown Club. He served on the Board of Trustees at Gardner-Webb University.

On his Facebook page watch the video of his first public speaking appearance on the street outside the Board of Elections on filing day, to a small crowd of supporters. I got a very different impression of him, and a welcome one. He's far from a politician, but he seems genuine and honest. He's got some political fire in him: "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," he declared to applause. He came to Cleveland County, he said, as a coach and teacher in 1971 to do what he loved, but the poor salary made him take a leap into the business world, and now the thing he's sickest and tiredest of is the way we continue to treat our school teachers and drive them out of teaching. And

treat our law enforcement officers and other public servants who enrich the general society while barely scraping by themselves. Increase their pay now is David Brinkley's number one issue.

David Brinkley on filing day,
wearing the purple

But he also wore purple for the occasion. "Neither blue nor red," as he pointed to his sweater vest. He wanted people to notice that. Meaning, he's no partisan Democrat, and won't fight like a partisan: "I won't get in the gutter," sez he, by which we assume he harbors a negative stereotype of campaigners and therefore probably won't be talked into attacking Tim Moore's record of self-dealing. Doesn't want to go negative. But that way -- the purple way -- takes you under the bus that just rolled over your torso.

Brinkley should make an issue of the corruption of power. Voters don't like public corruption, and given an option of an upstanding pillar of the community like David Brinkley, they might just decide to notice the truth for once about an elected official who's so clearly in it for himself while all sorts of other people drown.

A Democrat's winning this race -- maybe it's impossible. Maybe even if Brinkley drew sharp comparisons between himself and Moore, maybe it wouldn't move the needle. But maybe it would. I'd advise, in my capacity as Senior Campaign Advisor, that Brinkley raise the money to make Tim Moore's self-enrichment a campaign theme to all the voters in the 111th House District.

Tim Moore, a Self-Serving Politician, Wants To Be Chancellor of East Carolina University

Cat's out of the bag. Cat's on the hunt for an easy mouse.

Why would the second most powerful man in North Carolina -- NC House Speaker Tim Moore -- want to become chancellor of one of North Carolina's biggest universities? Perhaps because it pays in the neighborhood of a half-mil annually. The last full-time ECU chancellor, Cecil Staton, was making $450,000 when the Board of Governors (UNCBOG) ousted him. Tim Moore is no piker. He could undoubtedly negotiate that salary up a smidge if he took the job, seeing as how the men in charge of the hiring all owe Moore for their very jobs on the UNCBOG.

"Would you do me a favor, though?"

Moore is plenty tainted by self-serving during his time in the Speaker's chair. In August 2015, it came to light that Tim Moore had been appointed Cleveland County Attorney by a Board of Commissioners led by Tim Moore's own cousin, a partial sinecure worth $25,000 per annum -- $25k, whether he did a lick of actual work or not. Because as Speaker of the House, Tim Moore would have to be in Raleigh for sometimes months on end, so any legal business for Cleveland County would have to be handled by other lawyers paid their fair market rate.

Late in 2015, WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner outed Moore for flagrantly ignoring campaign finance reporting rules, and by January of 2016 Ochsner was hot on Moore's trail for paying campaign rent to himself. ("Speaker Tim Moore: Big Spender But Not So Great at Reporting It")

In 2018 Moore was credibly accused of improperly intervening with Gov. McCrory's Dept. of Environmental Quality so a limited liability company he co-owned could avoid fines related to underground fuel storage tanks. Moore and his partners bought the property for $85,000 in 2013 and sold it three years later for $550,000, aided by winking DEQ officials.

Later in 2018, there was more quid pro quo action that came to light, summarized by Dan Kane in the News and Observer:

Two years after then-House Rules Chairman Tim Moore’s legislation rescued a controversial south Durham mixed-use land project [751 South] and boosted a high-end residential community [Colford Farms] next door, one of the developers took him on as his lawyer. And two years after that, the same developer, Neal Hunter, gave Moore a legal services contract for a Durham-based pharmaceutical company Hunter had recently co-founded, paying him $40,000 for four months of work largely related to how federal tax law treated such startups.

This is the sterling candidate for leading a major North Carolina university, who's been incidentally working behind the scenes to seize the prize, but who's now been outed by anonymous members of the UNCBOG who talked to reporter Joe Killian (NC Policy Watch) about the unseemliness of the whole affair. Those BOG members aren't happy about not only the appearance of double-dealing but also the actual arrogance of the man who doesn't seem to mind the appearance -- especially the live possibility that Tim Moore had his hand in the sudden and unexplained ouster of Chancellor Cecil Staton and then the ignominious fall of the interim chancellor Dan Gerlach:

“It is not an accident that Tim Moore has had his hand in every one of these major leadership changes at ECU,” one trustee told Policy Watch this week. “He wanted to be the UNC President and it became clear to him that would be too controversial and there were some members of the [UNC Board of Governors] who would not go for that. So he began looking at where he could be a chancellor and ECU looked like the best place.”

Tim Moore Is Basically a Loser

 

NC House Speaker Tim Moore reeks of self-seeking. He's a schemer. Doesn't he always know "what's in it for him"? Early on in his career, he was grabbing mainly for money. Now, having amassed a great heap of power serving a record number of years as Speaker of the House, he's perfectly capable of torching someone who crosses him. There's now an imperial attitude to go with the nose for cash. But the strong arm doesn't always work for him.

Tim Moore Wanted an Academic Robe

It got leaked in October 2019 that Tim Moore wanted to "retire" from the General Assembly and be president of the UNC system. That rumor actually sparked a UNC student protest demonstration and just incidentally, plenty of coolness from members of the UNC board of governors who were wary about that kind of pressure. In the end, too many important people didn't see Tim Moore in the top dog mortarboard and cape, and that air ship went down.

Then, only a few months later, in Feb. 2020, it had become an open secret that Tim Moore was angling now to get appointed chancellor of East Carolina University. The job was open. It was lesser than being president of the entire system, but maybe he was feeling bargain-basement. Another Republican, Robert Moore, the East Carolina University Board of Trustees member censured as part of an SGA election scandal in February 2020, was the one who outed Moore's pressure campaign, in a defiant and get-even resignation letter. 

So Moore's second try for a cushy retirement plan deflated as quickly as the first one.

If He Can't Have the Regalia, He Wants It for His Friend

By the spring of 2022, a couple of years after Moore's last feint toward becoming university royalty, Moore became hellbent on getting his former chief of staff Clayton Somers in as chancellor of UNC-W. Clayton Somers had been Moore's inside man at UNC, his messenger boy and his fixer, but a new university president, Kevin Guskiewicz, had begun ignoring Somers and showing a dangerous independent streak:

"Kevin wouldn't just accept what Clayton said unquestioningly," one senior university official said. "Clayton didn't like being questioned .... That got their relationship off to a rocky start and it never recovered." 

Clayton Somers' side-eye. Photo Cornell Watson

Somers had become "deeply involved in negotiations around what to do with the [Silent Sam] statue after it came down. He ultimate plan involved a multimillion-dollar settlement with the highly controversial Sons of Confederate Veterans. It created a public relations nightmare from late 2019 into early 2020 and was ultimately thrown out in court" (The Assembly).

Bottomline: Fair-haired boy Clayton Somers had become a walking, talking sorehead who was on the outs with university administration, plus he was never going to be chancellor of anything. He didn't make it past the second round interview and wasn't on the short list of finalists. Another man got the job, so once again Tim Moore had custard creme on his face.

He took it out on Holly Grange.

Who Is Holly Grange and What Did Tim Moore Do To Her?

In July 2019, Holly Grange was a moderate conservative Republican member of the NC House (Dist. 20, at the Coast). She'd been in the job since the election of 2016 but was evidently getting antsy. She began to talk about maybe running for governor, which Lt. Gov. Dan Forest already had sewn up. That was a surprise (who did she think she was kidding?). NC Republican primary voters preferred the self-righteous vinegar coming out of Dan Forest. So Forest beat Grange with 89% of the vote. Ouchie! 

Grange's consolation prize, more or less -- she got appointed to the UNC-Wilmington board of trustees, and as a board member she was also selected to serve on the chancellor search committee. She didn't like what Tim Moore was doing to force his guy on the search committee. Some -- several -- members involved confirmed to The Assembly that Speaker Moore waved his dick around, but it didn't impress anyone. So Clayton Somers failed, and Tim Moore failed, and Holly Grange did it!

So about a year into her service on the board of trustees and in October 2022, very soon after Clayton Somers did not become chancellor of UNC-W, Holly Grange received a mysterious heads-up in a text message, that she should look at a bill that was just filed in the House. It declared her trustees seat "vacant." What? She was in the seat, a voting member. But a new law declared she didn't exist. It was a way to fire someone without firing them. Senior admin people at UNC-W couldn't believe it either, but just like that, Tim Moore had Holly Grange dumped out of her seat. Grange herself summed up the action: “I was removed simply because the Speaker of the House could not secure the chancellor’s position for his chosen person.” 

That's a fundamentally weak man who would do that.

Whoa! Woke Up, It's 2016, and Tim Moore's Castle Is Burning

You got to hand it to WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner. He was first at discovering that NC House Speaker Tim Moore had been in apparent violation since at least 2007 of NC campaign finance reporting law.

In 2006, the General Assembly voted to make itemized reports of credit card charges mandatory for all members. Tim Moore was a member of the NC House at the time. He co-sponsored the legislation and voted for it during all three readings of the bill. Yet he has consistently violated that law by failing to itemize his credit card charges, which are extensive (and see below).

[Footnote: Sen. Dan Soucek -- among others -- was also called out for failing to itemize.]

Reporter Nick Ochsner, who was at the time working in Raleigh (and before he joined the WBTV news team), was approached by Tim Moore's "people" about becoming the new House Speaker's communications director. Ochsner wanted to relocate to Charlotte, and a specific job offer never materialized.

Once Ochsner joined WBTV and started reporting on Tim Moore's opaque finances, the young reporter was attacked, very pointedly, by the entire state Republican scaffolding. The new Exec Dir of the NC Republican Party, Dallas Woodhouse, wrote Ochsner's WBTV boss and called for his firing, while totally misrepresenting Ochsner's past history with the Tim Moore operation. WBTV brass were not moved.

Then Representative Charles Jeter (R-Mecklenburg), who is the House Republican Conference Chair, emailed all Republican representatives, instructing them not to talk with Ochsner.

Ochsner pressed on. His confrontation with Tim Moore was captured on video (transcript here). Is it any wonder that Tim Moore hates Nick Ochsner?

Now look what leaked on New Year's Eve: FBI is poking around about the campaign finances of Tim Moore and other member(s) of the NC House.

Ochsner's investigation had burrowed in on thousands of dollars in rent payments Moore’s campaign has made to a company solely owned by the lawmaker and, most recently, a contribution he accepted from a state contractor who donated $1,000 during session. 

Moore has been obviously practicing the old "pay-to-play" political corruption of "You contribute to my campaign, and we'll see what slosh of gravy you can lap up." Moore's been so obvious with it that fellow Republican House member Justin Burr (R-Albemarle) recently warned fellow Republicans that the Party was harboring another Jim Black, the disgraced Democratic ex-House Speaker who went to jail for his corruption.

Tim Moore has shown himself as wholly self-interested, with his pork barrel shenanigans in Cleveland County, and with the fairly egregious acceptance of a sinecure as Cleveland County attorney, along with a hefty salary, even though other lawyers would have to be paid to handle county work while Moore was in session in Raleigh -- which was months and months in 2015.

So being the subject of an FBI investigation isn't exactly a good look for the Speaker, going into an election year, nor for the Party that he's a certified pooh-bah of.

How/Why Speaker Tim Moore Punished Fellow Republican Julia Howard

Julia Howard and Speaker Tim Moore

Totally indebted to Jeffrey Billman's "Primer" and to "Under the Dome" for the information that follows. Billman first:

Check out this timeline:

April 13, 2:29 p.m.: Charlotte reporter emails House Speaker Tim Moore asking for an interview about a bill to change the tax code related to Paycheck Protection Program loans.

April 13, 5:36 p.m.: Moore tells reporter, “I just want you to know that I have not advocated for that bill.”

April 13, 6 p.m.: State Rep. Julia Howard, the chair of the Finance Committee, opens a committee meeting with “I was given orders from the Speaker that we would hear this PPP bill today.” ...

“If passed, House Bill 334 would exempt some federal coronavirus relief loans from state taxes. Records show some of the bill’s strongest backers would likely save thousands of dollars, including one lawmaker whose businesses could gain some $20,000. House Speaker Tim Moore’s law firm could stand to benefit a more modest amount, as much as $1,300.”

“Rep. John Bradford, a Republican from Cornelius and a supporter of the bill, for example, could see his businesses’ taxes owed reduced by up to $20,000. Bradford is the CEO of a software company and sole owner of a property management company.” (N&O)

So long as the change applies to all PPP recipients and not just the lawmakers’ companies, they don’t have to recuse themselves.

"Under the Dome" yesterday afternoon:

North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore removed fellow Republican Rep. Julia Howard from her position as a senior finance committee chair Tuesday.

The move comes after Howard, one of the longest-serving members of North Carolina’s General Assembly, publicly opposed a bill that was backed by Moore and would benefit some North Carolina lawmakers who received federal coronavirus relief money from the Paycheck Protection Program. The bill, if signed into law, would give tax breaks to businesses that received those loans, including dozens of lawmakers’ businesses.

By revoking Howard’s chairmanship, Moore acted swiftly to punish a challenge to his control. With the legislature sharply divided along party lines, infighting in the speaker’s party presents a challenge to his ability to advance his, and his party’s, agenda....

Just on the face of it, Tim Moore lied to the reporter: "I just want you to know that I have not advocated for that bill." And when has Moore ever passed up an opportunity to benefit personally from the power of his office? 

NC House Speaker Tim Moore Is a Cliche

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into concerns about NC House Speaker Tim Moore’s apparently magic talent at making money appear in his office.

They know Moore's talent in Cleveland County, which he represents in the General Assembly. “Tim left for Raleigh driving a beat up Honda and he’s come back driving a Maserati” (anonymous Cleveland countian). After he became Speaker, which required him in Raleigh practically all the time, Moore got a $25,000 sinecure as county attorney for Cleveland Co., and he's been in the press for unsurprisingly vague and incomplete campaign finance reports. He's also accused of leaning on the Department of Environmental Quality to let him off some environmental violations on property he owned in Siler City. Among other questionable stuff.

Today's news brings more detail on some newer quid pro quo we'd initially heard about back on Sept. 26. Thanks to Dan Kane of the News and Observer for the handy summary:

Two years after then-House Rules Chairman Tim Moore’s legislation rescued a controversial south Durham mixed-use land project [751 South] and boosted a high-end residential community [Colford Farms] next door, one of the developers took him on as his lawyer.

And two years after that, the same developer, Neal Hunter, gave Moore a legal services contract for a Durham-based pharmaceutical company Hunter had recently co-founded, paying him $40,000 for four months of work largely related to how federal tax law treated such startups.

The implicit charge against Moore: Getting cash or cash-equivalent payback for legislative favors. Sinecures -- jobs with no duties but good compensation, like, say, County Attorney of Cleveland County -- are kind of a Tim Moore specialty. His influence is invaluable, his friendship, fungible, and his ability to pass laws and skirt regs, unsurpassed.

Naturally, Speaker Moore denies any connection between what his right hand was doing while his left hand was relaxing. And the elaborate explanations, rationalizations, and blessed sanitations that he offered to reporter Dan Kane in the News and Observer today just don't ring true.

Where there's smoke there's mirrors?

Apparently, his Democratic opponent in the 111th House District is too nice a guy to use Moore's corruption against him. He doesn't want to be a "typical politician." He doesn't want to be accused of "gutter politics." He apparently also doesn't want to win either, a mistake often endemic among nice-guy candidates. Too bad, because in a year like 2018 in North Carolina, even the Speaker of the House could be beaten, and you don't know the numbers of people in the 111th District who don't have a clue about Tim Moore.

Than Which There Is Nothing More Important

Tim Moore and Phil Berger

The ousting of these guys. These power-mad corrupters of good and fair government, these twisters of fact, these concealers of truth, these enemies of fair and open government ... these Tim Moore and Phil Berger, bosses of their respective chambers in the North Carolina General Assembly and would-be dictators and stackers of the judicial system and overlords of all levels of administration.

Jen Mangrum v. Phil Berger
I've written here about Berger's Democratic opponent Jen Mangrum many times (use the search box, upper lefthand corner, if you doubt it). She's giving Berger the shakes, a good case of flop sweat, and everything his minions have thrown at her has backfired and made her stronger. She's much more famous now after they tried to eliminate her.

Our favorite Jen Mangrum quote: “I’m a third-grade teacher at heart. I’ve dealt with playground bullies before.”

David C. Brinkley

David C. Brinkley v. Tim Moore

Speaker of the House Tim Moore's Democratic opponent is less well known. I did write about him here on March 6th, and laid out the case against Tim Moore's manifest corruption. In a period of notorious and ballooning official scandals in the DJT administration -- self-dealing of the most repulsive sort -- Moore is right up there with the most flagrant of them. It's clear he's in it for himself and his best buds.

Back in March I worried that Brinkley had decided that attacking Tim Moore's record would be off limits for his campaign, and that still seems to be the case. He wants to lead "Team Purple" -- never be partisan, which to me is leading a calvary with no swords. It gives me a case of political prickly heat. I've assumed since last March that Brinkley harbors a negative stereotype of politicians and won't be talked into attacking Tim Moore's record of self-dealing because he thinks it's "negative campaigning." But you don't win against an entrenched incumbent without drawing a clear distinction, and there is nothing in God's blue heaven against telling the truth about a corrupt public official. Brinkley's nicer way -- "the purple way" -- takes you under the bus that just rolled over your torso.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'll pray for that.

Rumble in the 14th: The Tim Moore-Pat Harrigan Primary

 

“I think it’s going to be a nasty primary. I would be shocked if Harrigan does not continue to hit Moore and hit him hard. What I don’t know is what Moore’s reaction is going to be.”

--WCU Political Scientist Chris Cooper

Harrigan

Last Friday I was tickled to publish Pat Harrigan's attack on Speaker Tim Moore's entry into the Republican primary in the newly drawn, heavily Republican 14th Congressional District. I couldn't guess at the time the response that attack got in yesterday's headline by Danielle Battaglia in the News&Observer: "23 minutes passed before Speaker Tim Moore’s race for Congress turned ugly. What now?"

Harrigan's attack is considered "ugly"? Because the facts behind it are also ugly? Harrigan put a hard finger right on the bruize: Moore's corruption, including the domestic corruption of the marriage vows, is a matter of character. Harrigan out-and-out suggests that Moore has none. 

Battaglia reminded me that Harrigan's race in 2022 against Jeff Jackson in the previous 14th also turned "vitriolic," with Jackson landing the sharper blows and Harrigan complaining in the media. He's not going to take anything sitting down, plus he was clearly ready for the arrival of Tim Moore. According to Battaglia, Harrigan published his attack on Moore only 23 minutes after Moore's announcement (or his strategist Paul Shumaker's statement, since it was actually Shumaker who made the news that day. Moore plans a big campaign public launch next week).

True to the ethos that money is the only god, Moore's staged "soft launch" last Friday in Gaston County involved the ostentatious presentation of a giant check to Gaston Community College. Sharing the goodies is a good ole boy's signature.

Republican operative Paul Shumaker got to announce that Moore is indeed running for Congress, so it only makes sense that Shumaker also responded to the Harrigan attack -- with superior condescension: “My experience, which is a little bit more extensive in this than most people in politics, is that those who are behind and those that are desperate, tend to be the ones who lash out first.” No shit. We'll see if Harrigan is willing to go whole hog on Moore, who's actually a big, fat, self-satisfied sitting duck.

Tim Moore Enters Congressional Race Under Small Arms Fire

 

Late yesterday, Tim Moore's political strategist got to break the news that Moore will indeed be doing in 2024 what every sentient politico in the state knew he was going to do -- run for the newly drawn and personally crafted 14th CD seat, which includes his home county of Cleveland.

There's already a Republican candidate announced in that race, an ex-Green Beret named Pat Harrigan, who "welcomed" Moore to the contest with this statement:

Tagging Moore as a "casino activist" hardly scratches the surface, though bringing up his "legacy of corruption" at least gets us on the right map for evaluating Moore's outstanding qualities as a candidate. Harrigan on his website makes a point of evoking the West Point Honor Code, which he says is sorely needed for members of Congress and which Tim Moore would presumably fail miserably.

The contrast between Harrigan and Moore could launch multiple memes. Harrigan is a lean warrior and is running as a metaphorical Green Beret of conservative thought and action. He tells us that while still on active duty at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, he started a small arms business out of his doublewide which grew into an arms manufacturing business, ZRODELTA, which in 2018 opened a plant with 65 workers in Burke County just off I-40. A Republican arms manufacturer running for Congress ought to be pure catnip for the conservatives of the new 14th CD, especially when they consider the sinewy, sacrificing Harrigan next to the pudgy, self-interested Tim Moore.

 

Harrigan ran for this seat in 2022 against Jeff Jackson, who won with 58% in a district that was much more favorable for a Democrat. It's been radically redrawn, which led to Jackson's stepping aside to run for the statewide office of Attorney General. For a brief couple of weeks, Harrigan was the only Republican in the primary, but he was clearly anticipating the entrance of Tim Moore. He had that "Welcome to the Race" statement written and cued up well before the news of Moore's run hit the wires.

Tim Moore: 'It Was Phil's Fault!'

 

Well, granted, Tim Moore didn't say it that directly. No, he was pussyfooting but also being bold perhaps in the knowledge that he won't be Speaker for much longer. So pointing out the failures of Phil Berger may seem less taboo (or not seem like you're just begging for a beating). 

Republican Senate leader Berger sprang the gambling casino language in the state budget and many members of his own party felt blindsided, especially in Tim Moore's House of Reps, and despite what Tim Moore may have promised Berger beforehand -- that he could deliver the House to legalize casino gambling -- he couldn't deliver the House, and Berger lashed out at him as an unreliable partner, and then Speaker Moore took a small measure of revenge when he spoke with reporters very recently and pointed the finger of blame in the general direction of Mr. Berger: “The way that it was done, the way in not going through a committee process like we did on the sports betting, I think – like you used the word earlier ‘doomed’ it -- I think it did.” That's tortured language to say what you're a little bit afraid of saying out loud, that it's all Phil Berger's fault that casino gambling didn't get legalized in North Carolina in 2023. The Fixer couldn't fix it because of his own arrogance. Berger had been dictatorial and brazen with the budget fiasco, because General Assembly rules mandate that the budget gets voted on as an all-or-nothing proposal, meaning once it’s on the floor for a vote there are no amendments allowed. Many of Moore's House Republicans didn't like that one bit.

“There were people who probably would have supported it as a standalone bill who just felt like the way it was being done and not having any input in it, didn’t work,” said Speaker Moore.

But as some smart people have already predicted, and Tim Moore certainly agrees, casino gambling ain't really dead, because they believe it will reemerge in some new duds in next year's General Assembly session, and Phil Berger has already signaled that will happen. When Berger comes again with his prize package, he'll figure out how to buy off all that conservative opposition, and he'll have plenty of PAC money to do it.

Republicans in NC House Try To Shut Down Investigative Reporter

Pretty much simultaneously, apparently, in October the state Board of Elections (SBOE) conducted a "random audit" of NC House Speaker Tim Moore's campaign finance reports while a WBTV investigative reporter was also poking around into the campaign reports of all the Charlotte-area members of the NC General Assembly.

Bottomline: the SBOE audit found that Moore had failed to itemize tens-of-thousands of dollars in payments his campaign made with a credit card from 2007 to 2015, a requirement in campaign finance law that was enacted in 2006 (went into effect on Jan. 1, 2007). Tim Moore was both a listed sponsor of that bill in 2006 and voted for it at every reading, including on final passage. Yet he has been in constant and consistent violation of it.

The Tim Moore campaign busily set about amending the reports covering 2005-2015, with the WBTV investigative reporter hot on the story.

That reporter's name: Nick Ochsner. The emergence of Ochsner's name as the target of state GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse's poison pen (illiterate as that pen happens to be) has now become the story.

Seems that Ochsner, while working in Raleigh and before he joined the team at WBTV, was approached by the Tim Moore people with a job offer: Would Ochsner consider becoming Moore's communications director? Ochsner said of course he might be interested but that he was also trying to relocate to Charlotte, where his wife was working. That ended the job feeler.

Ochsner subsequently landed the job at WBTV, and now he's broadcasting news about Tim Moore's failings at following NC campaign finance law, and Dallas Woodhouse, the new and thuggish Executive Director of the NC GOP, doesn't like it one little bit. Woodhouse wrote Ochsner's boss at WBTV that Moore's interest in hiring Ochsner should disqualify him from reporting on issues related to the North Carolina General Assembly. Seriously.

"It seems to me this is an extreme conflict of interest," wrote Woodhouse, "that should prevent the reporter from covering the man whose office recently rejected him for employment."

"Rejected him for employment"? That's a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts intended to taint Ochsner's motives. But it got worse, and much more ungrammatical:

"Are you aware that just a few months ago he applied to be the house speakers official spokesman? [Not true. He didn't apply. He was recruited.] He was actually interviewed for the position over the telephone he was not offered the job. should you want to see a documented paper trail on this issue I am able to provide one."

WBTV was not impressed by either Woodhouse's attempt at bullying or his writing ability: "Being approached about a job and having a phone call with an interested potential employer is not a conflict of interest. Nick's reporting has been fair and based on facts. I welcome all scrutiny of the facts of the story."

The attempt to silence Ochsner did not stop there. Representative Charles Jeter (R-Mecklenburg), who is the House Republican Conference Chair, emailed all Republican representatives instructing them not to talk with Ochsner: "I wanted to follow up on the Speaker's note from the weekend. If Nick Ochsner the reporter contacts you I urge you to not take his calls." Jeter then repeated the conflict of interest claim concocted by Woodhouse.

And so it goes.

Do You Smell Corruption When Tim Moore Is On the Premises?

 

Long story, short (with gratitude to Danielle Battaglia, of the NandO):

In 2022, House Speaker Tim Moore induced House Budget Chair Jason Saine to write in a new budgeted position for the courts system in the counties of Cleveland and Lincoln (the home counties of Tim Moore and Jason Saine, respectively), "trial court administrator," a new job which promptly went to a former employee of Moore's Kings Mountain law firm along with a $13,000 bump in salary.

The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) did not ask for the new position in their budget requests:

Only eight of North Carolina’s judicial districts have trial court administrators and they tend to have a high volume of cases. The others are Wake, Durham, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth and Cumberland counties and the district that encompasses Granville, Franklin, Person, Warren and Vance counties. 

Cleveland and Lincoln counties’ combined population of 193,765 is smaller than that of the other seven districts that have the position, whose populations range from 236,679 to 1.18 million.

Jason Saine

Tim Moore wouldn't speak to Battaglia about this news, but Jason Saine did speak in a way that might identify him as Moore's useful idiot and as a defense attorney's worst client. In trying to explain how a new high-salaried position got into the budget and how Tim Moore's close personal friend landed the job, Saine more or less defined "political corruption" for all of us:

“The local judges and court people were asking for it [a new trial court admin], and I realize AOC might not have requested it, but (the judges) are close to me and the speaker,” Saine said. “I don’t think it’s a big story; it’s just, yeah, turns out that’s how politics works: the proximity to talk to people who are in politics, and our districts do OK.”

We get it. Access = "doing OK."

Saine couldn't shut up:

“Tim interacts with the courthouse much more than I do,” Saine said, while struggling to explain who specifically requested the position. “It was one of those things that I was like OK, fine. That’s good with me. Whatever. They had a reason to justify it, and that was what it was.”

Asked why Cleveland or Lincoln received the positions while other counties were left without them, Saine responded: “Because I’m the budget writer and he’s the speaker. It goes into the budget for our areas and we’re able to see it through. It’s politics. I think readers would be shocked otherwise."

Not shocked any more by the obvious corruption, and by now only mildly annoyed that this sort of thing comes with zero consequences for any of the manipulators.

Speaker Tim Moore: Big Spender, But Not So Good At Reporting It

Following up on this post RE Speaker of the North Carolina House Tim Moore's amended campaign finance reports, WBTV investigative reporter Nick Ochsner is on the hunt:

We caught up with Moore on his way into a Cleveland County Board of Commissioners meeting [Moore is also the highly paid legal counsel for the Cleveland Co. commissioners]....

At first, Moore claimed to not be aware of the discrepancies found on his campaign’s finance reports.

“We have always filed everything with the reports as they are due, so I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Moore said.

But as the conversation continued, Moore said a reporter was wrong for saying his campaign had reported years of un-itemized credit card expenses and asking how his failure to itemize credit card expenditures was any different from the un-itemized credit card expenditures that prompted the board of elections’ investigation into Fletcher Hartsell.

“I disagree with your assessment entirely,” Moore said. “Everything on my campaign finance reports are documented fully. That’s a very unfair question and statement you just made.”

When a reporter pointed out to Moore that his campaign had recently amended five years of finance reports, he disputed that.

“You are wrong. I mean, my campaign records have been filed the same way over the years. I just had an audit from the state board of elections—a random audit they do every year—that said everything we’ve done has been fine.”

Moore ended the conversation without acknowledging the amended finance reports his campaign had recently filed as a result of the state board of elections’ audit.

Some of what those amended reports show ... Speaker Moore is a big-time dispenser of steak dinners for unidentified BFFs:

The detailed credit card charges filed with the amended versions of Moore’s campaign finance reports show the Speaker spent more than $7,000 at steakhouses between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first half of 2015....

For instance, Moore racked up nearly $500 in receipts during the first week of November 2014. On November 4 he charged $216.18 at Sullivan’s steakhouse in Raleigh. Two nights later, on November 6, he charged $246.19 at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Cary.

A week later, on November 12, the Speaker charged $936.33 at Vinnie’s Steak House in Raleigh.

Moore’s detailed credit card statements and campaign finance reports include more than a half-dozen dinners at Vinnie’s steakhouse.

One dinner, listed as just ‘meals’ on the campaign finance report, charged on February 23, 2015 cost $1,429.84. It is not clear who Moore was eating with or why the meal cost so much.

When asked about the expenses, though, Moore defended the charges that, until recently, had gone un-reported.

“We’ve always been very responsible in the way campaign money is spent,” Moore said.

“If there were meals, that’s where I’m taking out a large group of folks who may come up and visit or other legislators,” Moore explained.

Ah yes! Those blessed Republicans and their red meat!

"To Undo What We’ve Done.” Tim Moore Mis-appoints a Crony

 

Isn't cronyism inherently corrupt? I feel obliged to at least try to keep up with the new scandals that continuously sprout wherever House Speaker Tim Moore treads. His plans for Congress are well known, though he continues to play bashful about actually running for the newly drawn 14th CD that includes his home in Gaston County. Everyone even partially warm to the touch knows he's lusted for a seat in Congress, which he's now describing as only one of his many options. "Had we but world enough and time, this coyness, Timmy, were no crime." 

Kenneth Robert "Rob" Davis

According to Speaker Moore's fellow NCGA member Sen. Danny Britt (Lumberton), Speaker Moore hisownself put a name on a five-page list of appointments to important state government jobs, in particular an old college buddy and long-time friend Kenneth Robert Davis (goes by "Rob"), appointed to the Disciplinary Hearing Commission of the State Bar. All those appointments got voted on last week. Reporter Bryan Anderson discovered that the Disciplinary Hearing Commission (just this last May) found that as a lawyer Rob Davis had "failed to maintain accurate identification of all funds in his trust account, had mismanaged client funds, and fell behind on filing and paying several years of state and federal income taxes."

Sen. Danny Britt fingered Tim Moore as behind the appointment, because the appointment itself has become toxic enough already that fellow Republican Britt --also closely connected to Rob Davis in local politics; Davis is a county attorney for Robeson -- needed someone to blame not named Danny Britt. Britt's conversation with reporter Anderson included this:

 

Britt said Davis’s appointment came directly from Speaker Moore, and that Davis hadn’t requested it.

“He had not requested to be placed on this committee,” Britt said. “It kind of came out of the blue to him. He didn’t request to serve on it, but he appreciates being asked to serve on the committee. … I did not know he was nominated until I saw it in the appointment bill language. I know for a fact it was Tim Moore’s decision to put him on there and nobody else’s.”

For his part, Moore ain't talking (at least not to Anderson), though he did issue a statement last Wednesday that "he’d revisit the appointment" (whatever that means ... sounds juicy!). In the meantime the legal community and others involved in civic government are gaping at the appointment of a metaphorical jailbird to the new role as jailer (as political scientist Chris Cooper put it). Even though he was willing to finger Moore as culprit, Britt wants to peddle the narrative that Davis's transgressions were just "a minor bookkeeping thing."

Sen. Danny Britt

Rob Davis was a Republican member of the Bladen County Board of Elections during the great ballot harvesting scandal of 2018 to benefit the Rev. Mark Harris's campaign for Congress in CD9. After the State Board of Elections conducted its investigation of McCrae Dowless and his activities, the SBOE vacated all the sitting members on county BOEs involved in the Dowless multi-county shenanigans, just for a clean slate, apparently, and not because everyone was guilty of something. NCGOP Chair (at the time), Robin Hayes, appealed to the SBOE to keep Davis on the board but was denied. Asked very recently by reporter Anderson, Hayes now sez he has no memory of Davis. “The name doesn’t even ring a bell.” Ouch.

Lawmakers won't be back in Raleigh until November 29. In the meantime, Davis's appointment to the Disciplinary Hearing Commission is officially the law. Anderson reports that Davis himself is quite aware of the embarrassment and is seeking legal advice on how best to handle it, or simply not take the job. "Yeah! That's the ticket,"sez Britt, who actually did say out loud that Davis could "just choose to not participate in any commission activities":

“If he doesn’t get seated, doesn’t go to any meetings, doesn’t participate, then he’s a nonparticipating member and that’s really no issue,” Britt said. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do between now and [November 29] to undo what we’ve done.”

How to deal with the wounds cut by corrupt politicians: If a public servant doesn't do his job, that's a solution for a corrupt appointment!

The Five New Republican Congressmen From NC

 

The NCGOP is calling them "the Fab Five of 2025" (if you can imagine Tim Moore as "fab" in any universe). Their sudden fulmination as freshmen owed everything to the powers of gerrymandering. For the record, here's a brief primer on who they are:

Pat Harrigan

Addison McDowell (NC-06) -- I made fun of him in the primary. (Also here.) He had no Democratic challenger in the General.

Mark Harris (NC-08) -- I made fun of him and covered extensively the election re-do in NC-09 his campaign caused in 2018. Too many individual posts to link. Use the Search button, top left.

Pat Harrigan (NC-10) -- Harrigan was interesting to me because of his initial willingness to criticize Tim Moore, going back to Nov. 2023, and challenge him in a primary for the newly created 14th CD, a district drawn expressly as an appropriate landing pad for Moore who had grown bored with Speaker of the NC House and needed more capacious real estate on which to deal and Capitol Hill would do just fine. Moore had a magic wand with the map-makers, and the new 14th would be a breeze. Then Pat Harrigan arrived out of nowhere. Early in November, with the candidate filling period looming the first week in December, Harrigan, an ex Green Beret who manufactures guns, bared his teeth at Moore: "Harrigan put a hard finger right on the bruise: Moore's corruption, including the domestic corruption of the marriage vows, was a matter of character. Harrigan out-and-out suggested that Moore has none" (JWW). Harrigan was right, incidentally.

Harrigan's righteous anger at public corruption was refreshing, coming from a Republican candidate in the Age of Trump. Maybe he's a standup guy with a sense of ethics, I mused. But then he looked like just an opportunist when he completely abandoned his interest in the 14th CD and switched over to file in the 10th CD minutes after Patrick McHenry announced his retirement. Harrigan beat an anointed business-type Republican in the primary.

Brad Knott (NC-13) -- A blank slate for me. I'll be watching.

Tim Moore (NC-14) -- The pudge who became an improbable sex avatar and who appears to be a giant sponge when it comes to free or loose money, offered by free or loose men. Too many posts to make choices. Use the Search engine at top of page.  

 

There's That Familiar Smell, the Odor of Rank Opportunism

 

Apparently there's a discharge petition being pushed by Republican loose cannon Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to get a bill banning stock trading by members of Congress to the floor of the House for a vote, and it would surely pass. Freshman hustler Tim Moore is on a stock-manipulating spree (see details below for how his wealth has suddenly ballooned to almost $7 million). Moore's stock greediness is trailed not far behind by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (also see below), whose own stock trades were formerly said to outpace your average Congressperson. But Moore has far exceeded her. (Moore, who an eye blink ago was the self-serving Speaker of the NC House, carved out for himself a congressional District 14 added by the last Census, a safe seat to launch him on DeeCee where he could become even richer, ever shadier.)

Editorial Board, in the Raleigh News & Observer:

It should be obvious why members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to trade stocks, but if more evidence is needed, consider the investing gusto of U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 14th District.

Moore, the former North Carolina House speaker from 2015 to 2025, is a U.S. House freshman, but he’s already surpassed all other members of the state’s congressional delegation in buying and selling stocks. 

A recent report by The News & Observer’s Washington correspondent Danielle Battaglia detailed Moore’s frequent trades. Between his taking office in January and mid-September, Moore made more than 150 trades. That was five times the trading activity of the next closest member in the delegation, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, who made just over 30 trades in the same period. 

Good-government advocates have long called for a ban on members of Congress from owning or trading stocks. The members have security clearances, receive confidential briefings and have contacts in financial circles that create a situation ripe for insider trading. 

There was nothing about Moore’s trades that showed he acted on information unavailable to the public. However, his trades included investments in companies that could be affected by government actions on health care and tariffs. Even if a member’s trades are above board, the ownership of stock itself can affect how or whether the member votes.

Fortune magazine reported in June that Moore made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases shortly before and after President Donald Trump’s announcement of worldwide tariffs rattled the stock market in April. Moore failed to disclose the trades by a deadline required under the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, but he did submit a report within a 30-day grace period....

It stinks, doesn't it? That odor of opportunism running amok under the guise of public service.

NC's New House Speaker: Dead-Ender or Dangerous Moderate

Trying to decipher what manner of creature Rep. Tim Moore of Kings Mountain may become as the new Speaker of the North Carolina House. He's replacing Thom Tillis, who's gone on to glory in the U.S. Senate. Our Magic 8 Ball is giving ambiguous answers on Mr. Moore.

On the one hand, there's Mr. Moore's long history of hostility toward gay rights:

Moore generated a firestorm while [in student government at] UNC-Chapel Hill ... when he attempted to prevent the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association from receiving student activity funds. Moore said he doesn't regret his actions at the time, which angered many on campus. [WNCN]

Furthermore, according to WNCN, Moore sez he'll be balls-to-the-walls in continuing to defend the indefensible Amendment One, which has already been struck down by not one but two NC Federal judges, not to mention the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. By all means, Mr. Moore, let's waste more taxpayer money on more lawyers to defend that particular piece of bigotry.

Magic 8 Ball sez, "You may rely on it."

On the other hand, Mr. Moore catches grief from a Tea Party screedster for selling out fellow Republicans in helping to scuttle a bill in 2013 that would have ended solar energy subsidies. Turns out that Mr. Moore may actually care more about jobs in his district than he does Civitas doctrine on alternative energy: "Tim Moore’s 'district is home to a $27 million plant that manufactures parts for solar farms.' ”

So is Mr. Moore "soft" on a progressive issue like "sustainability"? Magic 8 Ball sez, "Ask again later."

Republican Dominoes, in Real Time

 

Former Republican state party chair and news reporter for the Carolina Journal, Dallas Woodhouse -- whose sources inside NC conservative circles must be legion -- broke the news that Congressman Madison Cawthorn was thinking of running in the adjacent 13th District rather than in his own 14th. Cawthorn said it would make North Carolina more conservative. He also said that Donald Trump fully supports the idea. He's talking it over with his wife this weekend and will get back to us on Monday. (My own confidence in this rumor is pretty much nil, but it's a welcome diversion on a Thursday.)

If that actually happened, O! O! O! the dominoes would begin falling. The 13th CD -- by all accounts -- was carved out explicitly to enable NC House Speaker Tim Moore to move his mahogany butt from Raleigh to DeeCee and to have a safe seat thereafter for as long as the grass is green or as long as it takes the rainmaker Moore to become sufficiently richer. He's not happy about Cawthorn's prospecting on his stake. And I bet he's on the phone right now.

Side note: Didn't know this. North Carolina needs to be more conservative, and Donald Trump agrees that Tim Moore needs to be eliminated. Interesting. I wouldn't think Trump would have a clue who Tim Moore is.

'Nother side note: If you're into state politics, what would be greater entertainment than Tim Moore's having Madison Cawthorn as a primary opponent? Two grifters -- of greatly differing ages and understanding -- enter. One grifter leaves.

Here's the new map: 

The other dominoes: If Cawthorn left the 14th open, three more Republican wannabes (Ralph Hise, Deanna Ballard, and Chuck Edwards) would also reportedly be making a decision about getting into the Republican primary (which already has three announced candidates -- see below). I first saw those new names on Dallas Woodhouse's Twitter. 

Edwards, like Ballard and Hise, is currently an NC state senator. His senate district 48 includes the heart of the new 14th -- Buncombe and Henderson counties. Edwards was appointed late in 2016 to replace the retiring Tom Apodaca, then won on his own in November 2016, ran for reelection in 2018 and got 56% of the vote, won again last year with almost 59%. He seems like a contender. Maybe stronger than Ralph Hise. Indubitably stronger than Deanna Ballard.

We have to leave for a later episode why Hise, head of the NC Senate redistricting committee, drew himself and Deanna Ballard into the same NC Senate district. Double-bunking of incumbents is usually received as a slap in the face ("someone wants to get rid of me"), is never welcome. Perhaps Hise and/or Ballard already had plans for a change in career, so maybe it's no biggie.

 

The 3 Republicans Already in the Race

Wendy Nevarez, ex-military and a moderate.

Bruce O'Connell, who came out with a boilerplate conservative "Contract" with the voters, making him look old and uninspiring. He runs the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Rod Honeycutt, also as dull as yesterday morning's dishwater, but he has been the most direct in attacking Cawthorn: "I will not watch from the sidelines as inexperienced, self-promoting characters seek to further careers while the hard-working men and women of WNC suffer the consequences" (quoted on WataugaWatch).

Famous For the Wrong Reason

 

Scott Lassiter sued House Speaker Tim Moore last June for cuckolding him. He claimed that Moore and his wife committed adultery over a period of three years that destroyed his marriage, a period of time that Lassiter's wife later characterized as "a nightmare." After much press speculation -- including Lassiter's claim that Moore admitted the affair to him at a Biscuitville and offered to bribe him to forget it -- Lassiter and Moore suddenly and unexpectedly "resolved" the alienation of affection claim (whatever a "resolution" means, since details remain secret), and Lassiter dropped his exceedingly rare lawsuit. Now Lassiter, a former Apex Town Council member, is running for the new 13th state Senate district in southern Wake County. The newly drawn SD 13 has no incumbent. The Civitas Partisan Index recently judged the district as a D+1"toss-up."

Lassiter works as an assistant principal for the national on-line Connections Academy, "a public school that focuses on helping students grow to be academically competent and behaviorally responsible." Lassiter also serves on the Wake Soil and Water Conservation District Board of Supervisors, and served on the Apex Town Council from 2011 to 2015" (WRAL).

Meanwhile, and like anyone warm to the touch would be surprised, Tim Moore actually admitted he was "thinking about" running for the 14th Congressional Dist., specifically drawn for him with no hindrance this year from a Madison Cawthorn. The shadiest of all General Assembly wheeler-dealers, Tim Moore will have vast new grazing rights in DeeCee.