Former Rep. Robin Hayes, who serves as chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, was charged by federal prosecutors on Tuesday with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bribery for his role in an alleged scheme to help route $240,000 in bribes from the state party to the re-election campaign of state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey. Causey, a Republican, worked with federal authorities in the investigation, and he was not charged.
The indictment accuses Hayes, major political donor Greg Lindberg, and two Lindberg associates of forwarding Causey a portion of a large contribution that Lindberg gave to the state party “in exchange for the removal of” a senior deputy insurance commissioner “who was responsible for overseeing regulation and the periodic examination” of one of Lindberg’s companies, as well as for other actions that would help Lindberg’s business. Prosecutors also say that Hayes lied to the FBI last year.
Hayes represented a U.S. House seat in the Charlotte area from 1999 until his 2008 defeat against Democrat Larry Kissell. Hayes served as party chair from 2011 until 2013, and he returned to that role in 2016. Hayes was one of the many Republicans who ardently defended Mark Harris even as more and more information surfaced about the election fraud committed on his behalf in last year’s race for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, and he alleged that the former state Board of Elections chair was conspiring with Democrats to steal the seat.
Even after the board called a new election in February, hours after Harris himself agreed that this was needed, Hayes put out a statement addressed to 2018 Democratic nominee “Dan McCready and his Democrat allies,” that declared, “You did not get more legal votes and there are no free lunches in politics,” and, “You will be held responsible for the extreme positions your Party has taken and your role to erase more than 283,000 legal votes by citizens of the Ninth Congressional District.” On Monday, one day before he was indicted, Hayes announced that he would not seek another term as party chair due to health reasons.
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