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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.

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By
Adam Owens
, WRAL anchor/reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — 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.
Robin Hayes could face up to six months in prison for the crime, but federal authorities plan to recommend a sentence "at the low end" of the applicable range, according to a plea agreement Hayes and prosecutors signed last week, meaning he could escape prison time altogether.

No 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.

Hayes, Durham businessman Greg Lindberg and two Lindberg associates, John Gray and John Palermo, were indicted in March, accused of trying to bribe North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey with up to $2 million in promised campaign donations if Causey would hire Palermo to regulate Lindberg's insurance businesses, or at least move a troublesome department deputy off the review.

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.

Hayes, who represented the 8th Congressional District from 1999 to 2009, didn't resign as party chairman after the indictment, but stepped away from day-to-day duties at party headquarters and didn't seek re-election.
Lindberg, who owns dozens of businesses and, at least until recently, lived in Durham, rose from political obscurity the last few years to become North Carolina's most generous political donor. He's Lt. Gov. Dan Forest's largest donor, a major donor for both the state Republican and Democratic parties and has given roughly $5.5 million to various North Carolina political campaigns over the last several years.
Lindberg, Gray and Palermo have pleaded not guilty to the conspiracy and bribery charges, and Lindberg has asked that the charges against him be dropped, arguing that the things he asked Causey to do didn't rise to an "official act" needed to justify a bribery charge.

"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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