Ethics questions continue to swirl around North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore after reports that a high-ranking aid in his office contacted the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to inquire about storage tanks at a chicken processing plant in Siler City owned by Moore and his business partners.
In recently uncovered emails from 2016, Moore’s aid, Mitch Gillespie started a chain of correspondence with DEQ that may have aided in the sale of the chicken processing plant. After discovering these emails, watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed an ethics complaint with the North Carolina State Ethics Commission.
Dan Kane is on the investigative team at The News & Observer and has been covering this story. Since his reporting came out earlier this week, Moore publicly denied any knowledge of the e-mails and provided a letter showing that the state ethics investigation about the property is closed.
Kane joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his look into whether Moore received preferential treatment by virtue of his office as well as allegations that Moore pushed through legislation to help clients at his private law firm.