#ncga: Say WHAT? A federal investigation?
THAT is what they are saying, friends: 
Wake County prosecutors say a date for state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell’s criminal trial has been removed from the court calendar pending a separate federal investigation.[…]
Hmmm. Hartsell gets charged for paying for all kinds of wacky stuff with campaign funds. We wondered aloud WHY Hartsell got charged, but this guy, and this one, and this one and this one DID NOT. (Maybe we now know why.)
I’ve been hearing that the FBI has had a steady presence at the legislative building over the last six months to a year. Super-sleuth Nick Ochsner broke a story about a possible federal probe of key folks on Jones Street. MORE:
Hartsell, a Concord Republican and the Senate’s longest-serving member, is scheduled to return to the General Assembly on Monday, less than two months after a Wake County grand jury charged him with filing false campaign finance reports.
The 69-year-old Hartsell began that day, June 28, chairing a legislative committee hearing. At midday he turned himself in to the Wake County magistrate’s office. By late afternoon, Hartsell stood on the Senate floor choking up during a speech honoring his wife. Senators then filled the chamber with applause as members from both parties offered public support.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman now says Hartsell’s case has been temporarily removed from the Wake County Superior Court calendar.
“He remains charged with three felony counts of claiming false campaign reports,” she said, “but we are in a holding pattern pending the conclusion of a federal investigation.”
According to Freeman, Hartsell’s case was removed last month after discussions with Hartsell’s attorney, Wade Smith of Raleigh.
“It is difficult for us to move forward until I know what direction the federal prosecutors will take — if any,” Freeman said.
Smith said he is currently discussing the case with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina.
[…]
That sound you hear in Raleigh is a stampede down to the board of elections to RE-vise campaign finance reports.
One has to remember that the US DOJ and all of the US Attorneys under the Obama regime are highly political and NC is a key swing state. I suspect they may be plotting an October surprise to hurt the GOP ticket. While we conservatives may love to see a takedown of some of the likely suspects who have had odd campaign expenditures or whiffs of corruption like David Lewis, Jason Saine, and Tim Moore, the political blowback from such charges could damage the campaigns of lots of other Republicans who are innocent of the finagling that some have been doing.
If the hammer falls on this scheme, it could be any time between Labor Day and mid-October. You can bet that it would be timed politically with the political animals in charge of the process.