RALEIGH -- A state investigation into campaign flights on private planes by Gov. Bev Perdue continues despite indications the probe had been wrapped up in June without evidence of any wrongdoing.
Three key members of Perdue's team, including former longtime chief of staff and campaign manager Zach Ambrose, were interviewed by elections investigators within the last month.
The State Board of Elections has scheduled a meeting Aug. 24 to discuss the findings of its staff investigation.
Ambrose said in e-mail that he contacted elections staff to set up an interview after being made aware of media reports that said investigators had been unable to question him.
"We met for an about an hour on Monday, July 19th, about the process the campaign used to report flights," Ambrose wrote Wednesday. "I was happy to visit with them."
The state board released its investigative report on June25, detailing 42 flights on private planes by Perdue that initially went unreported as campaign donations, as required by state law.
In a memo released with the report, state Elections Director Gary Bartlett wrote that the investigation had uncovered no evidence indicating any intent of wrongdoing. The memo suggested an "intense educational effort" to make political campaigns aware that such flights must be reported.
A July 15 report in The News & Observer showed, however, that the investigative report released to the public had been edited to remove references to people investigators had been unable to interview, such as Ambrose.
Records show that on July 20, elections board Chairman Larry Leake ordered investigators to interview Don Hobart and Will Polk.
Hobart was chief legal counsel to former Gov. Mike Easley and served as Perdue's chief of staff when she was lieutenant governor. Polk was staff lawyer to the then-lieutenant governor during her campaign for governor.
Leake attended the interviews, using a private plane to travel from Asheville on the day investigators questioned Ambrose. Leake also had personal business in Raleigh that day, he said, and he does not intend to ask the state to reimburse him for the cost of the flight.
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