Blog: Day 3 of Easley campaign finance hearing

4:25 p.m. – Don't forget to check out the WRAL News special at 7:30 p.m. for a recap and observations about Easley's testimony.

3:55 p.m. – Board Chairman Larry Leake sends the hearing into recess until 9:30 a.m. Thursday, saying Scott Falmlen, the former executive director of the state Democratic Party, will be the last witness the board wants to call.

The lawyers for Easley, his campaign committee and the Democratic Party say they don't plan on calling any witnesses after the board finishes its questioning.

3:50 p.m. – Cari Boyce, a former spokeswoman for Easley, says she worked with campaign officials to schedule his travel. She also dealt with the campaign fundraisers and would filter information for Easley.

Boyce says she communicated with Campbell during the 2004 campaign but his security staff and campaign workers would have scheduled trips on Campbell's plane.

She flew on Campbell's plane twice since state functions and campaign appearances often piggy-backed on each other. She doesn't recall any discussion of whether Campbell got paid for the flights.

She knew Easley's son drove a GMC Yukon, but doesn't know of any discussion of deals the governor got from Bobby Bleecker.

3:35 p.m. – Beverly Walker, who worked as Easley's assistant from 1999 to the end of last year, says she never handled any payments for cars provided to the governor and his family by Bobby Bleecker.

Walker says she handled rental income checks for Easley's private home in Raleigh, but she doesn't recall him ever discussing any repair projects at the house.

She didn't handle his schedule and didn't arrange air travel for him. She has seen McQueen Campbell in the Capitol Building before. She had no campaign responsibilities.

Walker says no transactions stand out at unusual in her memory.

2:15 p.m. – Whew! Easley has finally finished answering questions after almost five hours. The hearing is in recess until 3:30 p.m.

2 p.m. – Jim Cooney, the lawyer for the Democratic Party, pulls out his easel again to try to sort out the web of fundraising between the Easley campaign, the coordinated campaign and the state party.

Easley agrees that the Democratic Party can pay for his campaign staff as long as both sides report the exchange to the elections board. Easley says he doesn't recall any support from the party being contingent on him meeting a fundraising goal for the coordinated campaign.

He agrees with Cooney that he served as a Democratic "firewall" in both 2000 and 2004 since President Bush was expected to win the state handily and that support from the party would help candidates down the ticket.

He says he raised money for the Democratic Party to help with legislative candidates as long as they were viable candidates. He couldn't spend any of the money he raised because the party controlled it.

1:50 p.m. – Easley says he hasn't talked many people about the issues being addressed by the elections board because he doesn't want to interfere with a federal grand jury investigation of his dealings with friends and contributors while in office.

Board Chairman Larry Leake notes that Easley once spearheaded a state commission on bringing more transparency to state government and political campaigns.

Easley says he believes in-kind contributions need to be reported and that vendors have a responsibility to report the value of the services they provided to a campaign so they could be paid and the contribution reported.

He again says Campbell told him he had been paid for the flights he provided to Easley.

1:45 p.m. – Under questioning by board member Robert Cordle, Easley says the fundraiser should have asked people for money and let him spend his time on governing the state.

Easley says reports about his fundraising brought issues to light that he was unaware of previously. He says he's tried to go through the records to correct any errors, such as paying Bleecker for the use of the Yukon and checking on payments to Campbell for flights he provided.

"If we owe anybody any money, we ought to pay it," he said.

After Easley reiterates that he knew nothing of any attempt to funnel money through the Democratic Party to his campaign, Cordle says the only issue remaining is Campbell's claim that Easley ordered him to bill home repairs to the campaign as travel expenses.

"I don't know where he got that idea, but he did not get it from me," Easley said.

1:30 p.m. – Easley reviews a memo from campaign fundraiser Michael Hayden but says he doesn't recall it. He says he never liked raising money for campaigns.

He says portions of the plan outlined in the memo are inaccurate since it discusses raising corporate money. Such donations are prohibited under state law.

1:20 p.m. – Easley reviews a list of flights Campbell says he provided to Easley and notes for Earls which ones were campaign-related and which were personal.

"I do not have a recollection of how we worked that out," he said about paying Campbell for personal flights.

Easley says he didn't talk with Wilmington businessman Lanny Wilson about donating to the Democratic Party with the intent of getting the money channeled back to his campaign. He says he didn't talk with Wilmington developer about it either.

Both men said Monday that campaign staffers suggested they could give extra money to the campaign by earmarking donations to the party for Easley.

1:15 p.m. – A humorous break in the hearing: Elections board Executive Director Gary Bartlett's cell phone goes off, playing the UNC fight song as his ring tone.

Leake tells anyone who wants to to stand while the song plays and then complains that Bartlett copied his ring tone.

1 p.m. – Under questioning by board member Anita Earls, Easley says the Yukon was used for both campaign and personal use from 2003 to early 2005.

He says dealing with the vehicles could become tricky if the change in state law over the use of campaign money is factored in. The law now prohibits such funds to be used on personal expenses.

McQueen Campbell complained to him in 2005 that he wasn't being paid for his flights, Easley says. He says one invoice was paying for a block of time on Campbell's plane in advance, while a second invoice was to reimburse him for previous flights.

He says he's never seen the invoices from Campbell, and he doesn't know why Campbell would imply that Easley asked for fake invoices to be sent to the campaign.

"He never, ever mentioned anything about repairs to the house when we were talking about invoices," he says.

"I don't understand a lot of this. I don't know why he would send a bogus bill to the campaign when he could have submitted a bill and gotten a check," he said.

12:50 p.m. – Peaslee calls it "odd" that Easley wouldn't be involved in ensuring compliance with campaign finance law but would arrange to get a car for his son to use as a campaign volunteer.

"I'm the only one (on the campaign) who had a full-time job," he said, adding that he hired people to handle the "minutiae" of the campaigns. "At some point, you have to let go."

"I just don't remember much more about this," he said. "I would rather you decide some of those issues against me than run the risk of giving you misinformation."

Bleecker is "an old-school, handshake kind of guy," and Easley says he knew he would be paid eventually for use of the Yukon.

"He's loosey-goosey about these things," he said.

12:45 p.m. – Easley says his son used the GMC Yukon provided by car dealer Bobby Bleecker more than the governor himself used it. He wouldn't let his son use a state car for campaign work.

"We just did the best we could" in trying to pay off the bill, he said. "If there's something you want us to do differently, we will."

There might be 20 cars parked at the Governor's Mansion at any time to account for security and staff. He says he didn't notice if the Yukon was there at any particular time.

12:35 p.m. – Participating in the coordinated campaign doesn't mean giving up control over your own campaign, Easley says.

Some campaigns put names and numbers on checks they turned over to the Democratic Party to ensure they got proper credit toward their fundraising obligation, he says.

12:30 p.m. – Easley says he never saw memos from Reiff outlining a plan to use money from the Democratic Party to fund campaign expenses. He said he would have asked about the legality of the maneuver if he knew about it.

"I wasn't in the loop on a lot of these things," he said. "This type of thing, I don't think they would bring to me because they knew I wouldn't know."

Easley cracks a joke about his eyesight – "I could read better in 2000" – as he reviews documents provided to him.

12:20 p.m. – Reiff could pore through material and find nuggets of information about rival candidates. "I called him my gold miner," he says.

Peaslee asked who was in charge of complying with campaign finance laws, and Easley says the primary compliance is filing accurate reports on time. Horne was in charge of that, he says.

"I knew enough to know that I didn't know all of the election laws," he said, noting that he had John Wallace on hand for legal expertise and the campaign often talked with State Board of Elections staff.

He relied on Horne for compliance. "I tried to hire the best people I could find. ... People who I knew had integrity," he said.

12:10 p.m. – Under questioning by board member Bill Peaslee, Easley says former campaign treasurer is very detail-oriented. He says he hired former campaign manager Jay Reiff when he was still attorney general to help push a predatory lending bill through the legislature.

"The bigger the campaigns get, the farther you get removed from them," he said, noting that he doesn't know where his campaign headquarters was in 2004.

Asking people for money and talking about himself is hard, he says, so he doesn't like campaigning.

12:08 p.m. – Easley says everyone at the campaign felt McQueen Campbell had been reimbursed for all of his flights. He didn't know whether any checks for air travel had been written by campaign officials.

12 p.m. – The Democratic Party decides how to spend its money. The campaigns decides how to raise the money.

Easley says developer Gary Allen has been a major political donor for years, and he gives money to other causes as well. He says Allen didn't talk to him about his need for an environmental permit at one of his developments.

"Gary Allen's not the type who bring anything like that up with me," he said. "If he ever did discuss that with me, it wouldn't be at the same time he was giving me checks, I can tell you that."

11:50 a.m. – Under questioning by board member Charles Winfree, Easley says he didn't know of any plan by his campaign staffers to redirect contributions over the legal limit to the Democratic Party. If there had been any discussion of that, he says he would likely have remembered it.

"We had campaign people who knew the rules," he said.

Most discussions involved a budget for fundraising to meet advertising and other expenses. The campaign was set up to focus on regions, not individual counties.

Candidates who didn't face primary opposition – or token opposition – could begin contributing early to the Democratic Party's coordinated campaign, he said.

"It all begins to merge and blend at some point, and quite frankly, you're asking me about things that I never really got into," he said of his recollections.

11:30 a.m. – WRAL News will air a 30-minute special tonight at 7:30 p.m. on Easley's testimony. You can watch it on WRAL.com, on WRAL Mobile or on TV – over-the-air channel 5.1 and Time Warner Cable channel 255.

11:27 a.m. – The hearing is in recess for 10 minutes, and other elections board members are preparing to continue questioning Easley on his campaign finances.

Easley is speaking privately with his attorney, Tommy Hicks, and with John Wallace, the attorney for his campaign. The three are looking over records that have been presented to Easley while he was on the witness stand.

Like a veteran politician, Easley is now working the gallery, smiling and shaking hands with people watching the hearing as news cameras capture the exchanges.

11:25 a.m. – Easley says "I hope that wouldn't happen" when asked whether the campaign asked donors who had already hit the $4,000 limit in contributions to the campaign to send money to the Democratic Party so it could be redirected back to the campaign.

"There's a lot about (fundraising) that I wouldn't know," he said.

11:18 a.m. – Leake says some checks were sent to Poole in 2006 and labeled "special governor's account" in the Democratic Party. Easley says the money was likely to help other candidates, and Poole was helping out with that.

"I want to stay out of (the board's disagreement with Poole over his subpoena) because I don't want to be pushed or shoved," Easley said with a laugh.

He says he never asked Poole to assert attorney-client privilege when asked about campaign fundraising. If Poole doesn't have to waive privilege to discuss campaign finances, Easley says he doesn't have a problem with Poole speaking with the board.

11:15 a.m. – A Superior Court judge has signed an order blocking a subpoena for Ruffin Poole, Easley's former lawyer. The elections board wanted him to testify about fundraising by the Easley campaign, but Poole argued that his testimony might violated protected conversations with Easley as his attorney.

11:05 a.m. – Easley says he had to raise a lot of money in 2004 for the Democratic Party's coordinated campaign to get Democrats elected across the state.

He says the campaign pushed donors to write large checks to the party to generate money for the coordinated campaign. He says he didn't have much discussion about fundraising.

"I don't recall the party ever giving up any control over their money," he said to answer a question about his campaign trying to steer contributions to the Democratic Party back to the campaign.

He says it wouldn't make sense to raise money for the campaign if they could use money through the Democratic Party because there's no limits on contributions to and spending by the party.

11 a.m. – Easley says he was trying to finish up his term in office in late 2008 and didn't have time to check on reports that Campbell said he hadn't been paid for flights.

"I don't recall flying that much with McQueen Campbell in '04," he said.

There were numerous job announcements and National Guard deployments that he handled, but those were on state airplanes, he said. Also, checking the damage from hurricanes was done on state planes.

He said he flew on Campbell's plane more in the 2000 campaign, and he says Campbell told him he had been paid for those flights.

10:50 a.m. – Easley says Campbell talked to him last fall about reports of unpaid flights, and he told Campbell to check with campaign attorney John Wallace to ensure that everything had been paid.

He said he told Campbell to settle up with the campaign for any flights for which he hadn't been paid over the years.

Easley said it was up to Wallace and Horne to check the campaign records for any payments to Campbell through the years. He says he was told that bills for flights were in the name of one of Campbell's companies.

He says he can't vouch for a list Campbell put together to list the flights he provided for Easley over the years.

"Over 100 (flights) sounds like an awful lot," he said.

Flight logs kept by the governor's security detail were inaccurate, he says. He blames the errors on changes in scheduling during the campaign that the security detail never noted in its records.

10:40 a.m. – Easley says Campbell told him he billed in advance for flights, although Leake points out that a June 2005 invoice was marked "various flights November to April."

Leake asks why Campbell alleged that Easley asked him to bill the campaign for the home repairs as campaign travel.

"I didn't tell him to send them. I didn't indicate for him to send them," he said. "It never, ever happened.

Easley says he would have written a check for home repairs, because state law at the time allowed him to use campaign money for such personal expenses.

Campaign treasurer Dave Horne would have properly reported the expenses if he knew what they were, Easley says.

"It surprises me that he says (he wasn't paid for flights) now when he said in the past that he had been paid," he said.

10:35 a.m. – Easley reviews a 2005 invoice from Campbell for campaign flights that former campaign assistant Rebecca McGhee said Easley ordered her to pay without any supporting documentation.

"These two invoices are totally unrelated, at least in my mind, for anything to do with the house," Easley said, referring to a 2004 invoice from Campbell as well.

Easley said Campbell told him in 2005 that he was having trouble getting paid for flights after the campaign, and he wanted the matter settled.

The invoices covered a "block of time" that individual flights could be billed against, and Easley said he told McGhee that he was OK with paying Campbell in advance.

He says he was involved with getting the state lottery passed at the time and didn't want to deal with lingering campaign bills.

"My state of mind was, 'Can't you all work this out?'" he said. "I don't have time to mess with this."

10:25 a.m. – Easley says he doesn't recall any home repairs done in 2004, and he assumes Campbell either was reimbursed for work through the management company or his personal accountant.

He doesn't recall calling Campbell "the most honest man I know." He says he was an up-and-comer and Easley has confidence in him in handling jobs.

"Anybody's doing me a favor by handling a problem. You pay them, but they're still doing a favor," he said.

Easley said he assumed Campbell was paid for the repairs, but he never asked him.

Leake calls Easley a tightwad and asked why he never asks Campbell about the cost of the repairs.

10:10 a.m. – Campbell developed close relationships with renters of Easley's house, and Easley says he probably asked him to get estimates for repair work that needed to be done at the house.

"There were constant repairs that were made, constant maintenance, as you can imagine, on a rental," he said.

Easley says Campbell would send his bills to a management company for reimbursement. He recalls one instance in 2005 when Campbell took care of a bathroom leak that had damaged the floor, and he asked Campbell not to talk to the insurance company because he didn't want his homeowner's policy canceled for making too many claims.

Easley said he assumed the problem was fixed, but he didn't pursue any restitution from the tenants.

"Do you really think any insurance company would cancel the policy on the governor?" Leake asks.

Campbell made an insurance claim for the water damage, Easley says, but the reimbursement went to the governor's account.

10:05 a.m. – The Campbell family has been friends with Easley for years, and McQueen Campbell became more involved in the campaign in 2003.

"He wanted to do more than fly a plane," he said, noting Campbell wanted to help with fundraising.

A state plane wasn't available for use in the 2000 campaign, when Easley was attorney general. So he needed transportation on private planes.

Real estate market wasn't good in 2001, so Easley kept his private home in Raleigh when he moved into the Governor's Mansion. Campbell helped with the upkeep of the home while it was being rented out.

"McQueen Campbell was sort of a jack of all trades," he said, noting that he always knew where to go to fix a broken appliance.

Easley says he knows nothing about the $3,100 in Christmas ornaments Grace Ramsey purchased as an inauguration gift in 2004.

10 a.m. – Easley says his son conducted research for the 2004 campaign, and he traveled with the governor. So he needed a vehicle to get around. He's not sure how often the used Yukon was used for the campaign.

9:57 a.m. – Easley's vacuum was spraying dust through his living room the last time he spoke with Bleecker on the phone, so he couldn't discuss the bill.

9:50 a.m. – Leake asks him if he was keeping tight reins on the campaign wallet to keep spending in check, how closely was he watching individual expenses.

Easley says he didn't like to see money wasted on extra ads or several people doing the same job, knowing how hard he worked to raise the money.

"People in campaigns will use money like Monopoly money, and they'll spend all you've got," he said.

Yet, he says, he assumed Bleecker was being paid for the vehicles like the campaign had done in previous years. He figured the campaign would be invoiced and paid and then the bill would be shifted to his personal accountant.

He says he settled up with Bleecker when he realized the bills hadn't been paid. He says the mix-up might have occurred because the deal lasted for more than a year.

9:45 a.m. – Bleecker wasn't paid for a used GMC Yukon provided in 2003 until early this year, and Easley said the campaign couldn't find any invoices from the dealership during 2003 and 2004.

Elections board Chairman Larry asks Easley about how he kept up with campaign expenses, and the former governor responds that his main focus was on refining the message through media relations, polling and being the public face of the campaign.

"I had people paid to do that," he said of finances.

He lays out the structure of his campaign staffs in 2000 and 2004, noting he "tried to keep a pretty lean campaign" during his re-election because a lot of money was spent on administrative costs in 2000.

9:35 a.m. – Easley is trying to explain his use of vehicles provided free of charge by Fayetteville car dealer Bobby Bleecker.

"I do remember thinking, 'We don't need all of this,'" he said about a used SUV provided in 2003. "After the campaign was over, we maintained that vehicle for my son."

His relationship with Bleecker dates to the mid-1990s, and the deals were treated as leases on used vehicles. If the vehicle sold, he needed to be prepared to switch it out without notice.

"It was sort of a loose arrangement," he said. "If you've talked to Mr. Bleecker, he just works things out, and it worked for us."

The family and the campaign made sure Bleecker was paid for the vehicles. Campaign officials said no payments were made in 1999, 2003 and 2004.

"We owed the man, and we needed to pay the man," he said, so the campaign settled up with Bleecker.

9:30 a.m. – Easley has shown up, smiling and at ease like one would expect from a seasoned politician.

9:05 a.m. – News crews have staked out the entrance to the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh, waiting for the much anticipated appearance of former Gov. Mike Easley at the State Board of Elections hearing into his campaign finances.

Easley has been a no-show for the first two days of the hearing, when campaign donors and former staff alleged various violations of campaign finance law, everything from misreporting – or not reporting – contributions to campaign staff telling donors to skirt contribution limits by giving money to the state Democratic Party.

It's unknown whether Easley will testify when he's called as a witness, but he'll have to show up even if he exercises his constitutional right not to testify.

As always, WRAL.com coverage of the hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. Please use the comment section below to send questions to WRAL News anchor David Crabtree, who will address them during breaks in testimony.