(Drip! Drip! Drip!) Even more names added to Kentucky distillery trip probe
If you think the outlook for November’s vote is depressing, get 
a load of where this Greater Carolina fiasco is heading:
A newly public search warrant identifies two more lawmakers who attended at least one of two bourbon tours in Kentucky, and one of them is the current co-chairman of the House Alcoholic Beverage Control Committee.
The warrant is the second made public in a probe by the State Bureau of Investigation into a nonprofit known as Greater Carolina, which hosted the trips.
The warrant says only one lawmaker who attended — state Sen. Tim Moffitt of Henderson County — reported the trip on his statement of economic interest, a report many state officials have to file with the State Ethics Commission each year.
Four lobbyists face a misdemeanor charge of violating the state’s ban on gifts to lawmakers. The indictments say they used their clients to help pay for the 2024 bourbon tour. Evidence in the case reported in search warrants shows lobbyists’ clients also helped pay for the 2022 trip, but the statute of limitations prevents charges from being considered, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has said. […]
It appears that some new names have come into the spotlight:
[…] The second search warrant was unsealed late last month. It said Rep. Ray Pickett of Watauga County and state Sen. Todd Johnson of Union County attended the 2022 trip along with then-Rep. Jason Saine and Moffitt. All are Republicans.
Both search warrants say 11 lawmakers attended the first bourbon tour with lobbyists and their clients, while nine lawmakers attended the second. It’s unclear how many of the first group of lawmakers also attended the second tour since Moffitt was the only one to disclose the trip.
A complaint that prompted the investigation, filed by Carolina Forward, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank, produced receipts from the 2024 tour that showed purchases by Reps. Kyle Hall of Stokes County and David Willis of Union County. Hall and Willis, both Republicans, did not respond last year to inquiries about whether they attended the 2024 tour.
State Sen. David Craven, a Randolph County Republican, early this year acknowledged attending the 2024 tour after The News & Observer inquired about him reporting on his 2021 economic interest statement that he was Greater Carolina’s secretary.
The search warrants and other documents indicate that Saine attended both trips. A former legislative aide of his, Clark Riemer, who is now a lobbyist, filed the incorporation papers for Greater Carolina in 2018. The nonprofit bills itself as a free-market conservative group.
Its director, David Coble, is a Mooresville businessman who occasionally cohosted a radio show with Saine, a Lincolnton Republican.
The search warrants say Saine was involved in launching the bourbon tours. During that time, he was the chief budget writer under then House Speaker Tim Moore, who left the position in 2024 to successfully run for Congress. Saine also left the House that year and became a lobbyist. By then the 2024 trip had become public, the result of a Reddit post by a distillery employee who claimed the tour group had behaved badly. […]
The question of WHO exactly picked up the tab for these trips to Kentucky is key to whether all of this slides across the line into illegal territory:
[…] The search warrants show the lobbyists’ clients sought to talk with lawmakers about alcoholic beverage issues. Liquor companies Diageo and Sazerac paid thousands of dollars in expenses. Diageo also made a $10,000 “in-kind” contribution to Greater Carolina in 2024. Since it is organized as a 501(c)4 “social welfare group” under federal law, it does not have to disclose its donors.
The newly released search warrant also said Diageo paid for a dinner on the 2024 tour at Morton’s Steakhouse in Louisville, Kentucky, that the company had expected would be picked up by Greater Carolina. A Diageo government affairs employee planned the “Greater Carolina hosted dinner” with Sarah Newby, who the nonprofit contracted with to raise money and hold events. She is also a state GOP official and the daughter of state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby.
“At the end of the evening, the Greater Carolina staff were unavailable, leaving the final invoice for Diageo to pay. Diageo paid the invoice with the expectation that Greater Carolina would reimburse them, but no such reimbursement was received as of March 14, 2025. Diageo ultimately considered the cost to have been an ‘in-kind’ contribution’ to Greater Carolina,” the search warrant said.
Greater Carolina has never hired a lobbyist, which would have prevented it from offering the bourbon tours to lawmakers. But the SBI says in the search warrants that Greater Carolina served as a cover for lobbyists and their clients to pay for the trips to “evade lobbying disclosure and reporting requirements.
In a brief interview Wednesday, Pickett said his attorney had told him not to discuss the trip. Johnson, who is seeking to be the next Senate leader when state Sen. Phil Berger finishes his term, could not be reached. […]
