Gov. Bev Perdue’s campaign committee disclosed late last week five additional airplane flights then then Lt. Gov. took but were not previously disclosed on campaign finance reports. This report continues to raise more questions than answers about how many more flights are out there that have not been disclosed and why is it so hard for the committee to come clean on its expenditures.
According to the Perdue Committee these flights weren’t disclosed due to “software problems” in converting from one database to another. While this may be a plausible explanation, there appears to be some doubt to its validity as an excuse.
Four of the five new flights reported were provided by Raleigh attorney Terence McEnally, who stirred controversy back in 2006 by wanting to advertise his Hispanic-centric law firm by prominently flying the Mexican flag outside his downtown office space. McEnally also owns the Spanish-language newspaper La Conexcion.
Coincidentally, McEnally posted a classified ad offering to sell his airplane on Nov. 17, 2009, just one day before the Perdue Committee submitted the amended report to the State Board of Elections detailing his four prior unreported flights.
Was McEnally’s haste to sell his airplane one day before the report to the State Board of Elections just a coincidence, or was he trying to unload it before the questions would begin to be asked?
The other flight was claimed to be provided Mary Brinn, owner of Brinn Glass and Mirror, Inc. of New Bern. The flight expense credited to Ms. Brinn was dated 5/25/2006. However, according to corporate records filed with the NC Secretary of State’s office, Brinn did not live at the address claimed on the Perdue report until 2008. If this was just a simple database transition error as the Perdue Committee claims, why did it have the incorrect address listed for Mary Brinn?
Its strange that Perdue continues to hide behind the “computer glitch” excuse for the failure to disclose flights. Instead of making excuses, wouldn’t it just be best for everyone if she and her committee just admit that mistakes were made and come clean on all the flights Perdue took? Release the travel records and get ahead of the story. Instead she continues to look like a hypocrite by signing Executive Orders purportedly to improve governmental ethics, all the while hiding behind her own veil of deceit.
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