FBI agents contacted two lawmakers regarding House speaker

An anonymous letter sparked inquiries into House Speaker Tim Moore's activities.

Posted 11:18 p.m. Jan 18, 2019 — Updated 12:35 a.m. Jan 19, 2019

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — FBI agents reached out to at least two members of the state House in recent months, asking questions about an anonymous letter that accused House Speaker Tim Moore of chicanery.

Recently retired Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, said a pair of agents visited his office. Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, said he got a phone call. Neither man could say exactly what the agents wanted, but they didn't have any proof of wrongdoing to share.

"I hadn't read the letter, seen the letter," Saine said. "Kind of a short conversation."

That letter is dated May 21, 2018, and it begins, "I am currently a sitting member of the North Carolina House of Representatives."

It's been floating around for months, and it makes a number of accusations. It was addressed to Josh Lawson, attorney for the State Board of Elections, and copied to three news organizations, including WRAL News.

It concluded by saying that "if you figure out who I am ... I will talk with you or the press, ON THE RECORD."

Based on the timeline that the letter described and the committee memberships claimed, WRAL News determined earlier this year that it could describe only three members of the House: Blust, Saine and Rep. Linda Johnson, R-Cabarrus. All three told WRAL News months ago they had not written the letter and knew nothing about it.

"It certainly wasn't me," Blust reiterated Friday, adding that he's never heard Moore make any of the statements the letter describes.

Wake DA looks at House speaker's roles as private attorney, public legislator

Blust said two agents spoke to him for less than an hour. Saine said the phone call seemed to him "almost like checking a box" for the agents.

"Just my opinion of it," he said."An anonymous letter is an anonymous letter."

Moore, R-Cleveland, issued a statement through a spokesman.

"This is a 3-month-old story about my fellow legislators cooperating with officials to show that there is nothing to the anonymous allegations,” he said. “The partisan election season is over, and it’s really time for us to focus on taking care of the state’s business.”

Blust has long been a critic of Moore and of the top-down power dynamic in Raleigh, where Republicans control both chambers of the General Assembly. The News & Observer was the first to report his contact from the FBI Friday.

Blust told WRAL News that a recent revelation about the speaker troubled him and that, if had run for re-election, he would have brought the matter up when Moore was re-elected speaker.

Moore, an attorney by trade, was paid $40,000 for four months of work for a Durham firm tied to a developer whose project in Durham benefited from legislation Moore sponsored in 2013, The News & Observer reported in September. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said soon after that she had opened a "preliminary review," though not a criminal investigation, into accusations against the speaker.

Moore said in a statement at the time that he welcomed the inquiry. Blust, an attorney himself, said he was concerned to hear about the speaker's legal work.

It's "worth something," Blust said Friday, to have such a powerful figure as your attorney.

Freeman said in October that she was also interested in work Moore did in 2012 for a bail bonds group that later won, through legislation, the exclusive right to provide bondsman certification training in North Carolina. That law was eventually struck down by the courts.

Many of the accusations in the anonymous letter stem from the bail bonds controversy, which has pitted a pair of rival industry groups against each other.

The speaker has also faced questions about his role in a Siler City chicken plant deal, and about his one-time fiancée getting a job with the state Department of Insurance after Moore's office forwarded her resume.

Suggest A Correction