Former NC GOP chairman pleads guilty to lying to FBI
Former North Carolina congressman and state Republican Party chairman Robin Hayes pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying to the FBI during an investigation of bribery allegations into a major political donor.
Posted — UpdatedNo date has been set for his sentencing.
Neither Hayes nor his attorneys spoke as they left the federal courthouse in Charlotte. But longtime friend Jeff Mullins went to court to show support for Hayes.
"I just patted him on the back and said good luck," Mullins said. "We all know politics today is a strange animal."
As part of the plea deal, conspiracy and bribery charges and two other counts of lying to authorities were dismissed against Hayes. In return, he is required to work with federal investigators and prosecutors on the case.
The department was asking a series of financial questions about Lindberg's insurance businesses at the time.
Some money was funneled, federal prosecutors allege, through the North Carolina Republican Party to get around state campaign finance laws. Causey, who was cooperating with investigators, has turned over to the federal government roughly $250,000 that flowed to his re-election campaign through the party.
Hayes' guilty plea involves telling FBI agents in August 2018 that he had never spoken to Causey about Lindberg or Gray or personnel issues at the state Department of Insurance when he had already discussed with Causey a plan to route Lindberg's contributions through the state GOP and about Lindberg's desire to shuffle personnel within the department.
"Donating money to a political campaign is a First Amendment right protected by the U.S. Constitution and something that anyone can exercise," Lindberg attorney Brandon McCarthy said in a statement last week.
Federal prosecutors addressed that argument in opposing Lindberg's motion to dismiss.
"When a campaign contribution is conditioned on specific official action, it constitutes a bribe and is not protected by the First Amendment," they wrote in their own motion.
The trial is set to start in November.
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