A lot of newspapers across the state ran articles about Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest calling for an investigation of the $57.8 million pipeline “mitigation fund” that Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper arranged to have created and put under the sole control of the governor.
But that’s not the real news.
Forest plans to run against Cooper for governor in 2020, if they make it through their respective primaries. Calling for an investigation of your opponent for something is pretty much par for the course these days.
The real news about the mitigation fund is that the joint editorial board of the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer of Raleigh published an editorial in both newspapers – the two largest in the state – calling for an investigation of the whole seedy affair.
This all follows the completion of an investigation by Eagle Intel Services LLC, funded by the leadership of the General Assembly, which as the editorial notes, “did not find the proverbial smoking gun, but it did find smoke – enough of it that an official investigation is needed to assess the legality of how the fund was established.”
If the joint editorial board of the Observers, found enough smoke to warrant an investigation, you better believe that there is so much smoke you can’t see your hand in front of your face.
Cooper and the Republican-led legislature have been at each others throats since Cooper was elected in 2016, and these two newspapers time and time again have sided with Cooper.
Now there has been a sudden about face, the newspapers are siding with Cooper’s most likely 2020 opponent Forest and against Cooper, who keeps insisting that the entire $57.8 million and the pipeline approval by pure coincidence happened one after the other.
As Forest has pointed out, “Someone is lying.” But the real news is that the News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer want to know who is lying even though there is a very good chance it’s their own favorite governor.
