The ongoing criminal investigation into Attorney General Josh Stein’s 2020 political campaign was launched despite a recommendation from state elections officials not to do so, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Friday.
A memo from the N.C. State Elections Board, recommending no further action, was first reported Thursday night by Charlotte news station WBTV. Freeman confirmed WBTV’s reporting in an interview with The News & Observer Friday morning. She declined to make the memo itself public, but it was filed in court Friday morning.
Freeman has recused herself from making decisions in the investigation. But she defended the decisions of one of her top deputies to pursue the criminal investigation against the advice of the elections board. She compared it to the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent decision to serve a search warrant on former President Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
“To some extent, this is no different than what (U.S. Attorney General) Merrick Garland said yesterday,” Freeman said. “This is about a prosecutor believing ... that the system needs to apply to all, and without bias.”
Unlike in the saga of Trump and the DOJ, all the major parties in this North Carolina investigation are Democrats. Stein and Freeman are both elected Democratic politicians, and the state elections board has a 3-2 Democratic majority chosen by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
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