Brother Love

Four Eggers

I began saying, or at least implying, back early in August that Stacy C. Eggers IV ("Four"), Watauga County attorney, was also ghostwriting every word that his little brother Luke Eggers began delivering as Chair of the Watauga County Board of Elections, mainly resolutions that seriously attempted to reorder access to the polls in Watauga County and which were seriously partisan in nature.

It was obvious that Four was authoring all those resolutions and that he also rewrote the minutes of the August 12th meeting without having been there.

Now Bertrand Gutierrez of the Winston-Salem Journal has proven it with the evidence of the digital "thumbprint" that every computer places on every document created on that computer. Before Gutierrez's article this morning, I didn't even know such a thumbprint existed. Now I can legitimately say, "Told ya so!"

There's much more in the Gutierrez article:

1. Finally, an explanation for why Four Eggers was not appointed to the Watauga County Board of Elections in the first place: Josh Howard, chair of the State Board of Elections that made the appointments, is quoted: “He serves as the county attorney. I don’t think he can do both jobs because the county attorney often has to advise the county board of elections.” In other words, Josh Howard was troubled by the appearance of a conflict of interest. Appearance. Yeah, we've gone a little past that!

2. Did we say "conflict of interest"? Gutierrez includes evidence in his article that while Four Eggers was doing all of his little brother's homework, he was also turning aside a request for help or clarification from Democratic member of the Watauga Board of Elections, Kathleen Campbell. Four Eggers is revealed as a double-dealer, telling Campbell piously, "Oh I can't help you without also helping another member of the Board, and that would be wrong because I would have to bill the county for that service."

3. Speaking of "billing the county," Gutierrez does not delve into Four Eggers' billing records. Maybe Watauga's local press would like to take up that slack.

4. O it was a grand scheme: Even though Four Eggers was kept off the local BOE, he pushed his little brother Luke forward to Republican Party Chair Anne Marie Yates for appointment, and with Four writing all Luke's documents, including most especially agendas for the meetings, Four could still run the Board of Elections from behind the scenes, and they would take the gloves off ... grind down Elections Director Jane Anne Hodges, shut down ASU student voting to the extent the law allows, make it possible for Anne Marie Yates's "Templeton slate" of candidates to take the Boone Town Council in this fall's elections. O it was a grand scheme. But turns out Four Eggers had a thumbprint.

5. What does it say about Four Eggers that he would hang his brother out to dry: "Asked if Luke Eggers wrote any of them [resolutions voted on by the BOE], Four Eggers said: 'You’d have to ask him about that.'”  Yeah, give that a try. Luke Eggers is now dodging the press like a fugitive. What does it say about Four Eggers that he would volunteer his little brother to become a big patsy, the total tool of older, more powerful, and more ruthless people?

6. The reaction of Watauga County Commission Chair Nathan Miller: "If he [Four Eggers] wants to give advice to his brother, free and off the public doles, so that he’s not taking any public money, then so be it. I’m not going to stop him from giving advice to his brother. And I don’t think that creates any kind of conflict.” It's been proven that what's at issue here is a good deal more than "giving advice to his brother." Nathan Miller sees no conflict of interest. Mind you, this is the eyesight of the man who wants to be elected our District Attorney next year. (And there, still begging for attention, are Four's billing records.)

7. "Collaboration" means something else to Four Eggers. It means "dictation."

8. O what a web we weave when first we practice to deceive. The part of Gutierrez' article that details his interview with Four Eggers is a tangled mass of equivocations. Four changes his story to fit the evidence as the interview progresses, wrapping yourself around the axle of his own Grand Scheme. Four first says he "helped Luke work on some of those" resolutions. Then he's not sure that "I can say I wrote them. But I did help him [Luke] work on his resolutions," just like two frat boys with a sixpack and a yellow pad, spitballing ideas late into the night. “I don’t know if I can claim authorship," Four sez, but presented with the thumbprint evidence, he decides that maybe he was sitting at the computer, just typing while Luke dictated the language of the resolutions. Then he places Luke at the computer, borrowing it to send e-mails. The biggest groaner: Four claims that he didn't really know the final form of the resolutions that Luke sent out. Holes, meet truck.

9. No, there's been no "over-exaggeration" of Four Eggers' role in the recent political life of Watauga County, even though Four Eggers said this to Bertrand Gutierrez: “It is no secret that I have been involved in political activities and have been involved with issues that are local issues of local concern. I think that they [critics] would probably be over-exaggerating my role and my influence by saying that I [am] somehow making decisions."

10. Where is Anne Marie Yates in all this?