Soft-on-crime North Carolina Democrat Senate candidate Roy Cooper’s tenure as governor was marked by a number of scandals exposing a culture of corruption in plain sight.
Early in his tenure, Cooper used the power of his office to pressure energy companies into creating a $57.8 million slush fund as his administration held up a pipeline permit. Investigators called it “an abuse of power” in sworn testimony when Cooper’s top aides rewrote an agreement giving Cooper control over funds rather than the State of North Carolina.
A Duke Energy lobbyist said Cooper’s senior policy adviser, Ken Eudy, was not truthful when making statements to a legislative committee investigating the Cooper administration’s role in the project and slush fund, according to reporting from Carolina Journal.
According to the report, investigators said it would be reasonable to conclude Cooper used the power of his office to pressure ACP developers into creating a fund as a condition for getting an environmental permit. The report also concluded, “the information suggests that criminal violations may have occurred.”
