SC House speaker tries to make ethics case go away

By Rick Brundrett | The Nerve

South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell – arguably South Carolina’s most powerful lawmaker – was visibly angry after state Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that an ethics investigation of Harrell had been referred to the state grand jury.

“I believe it was intended to inflict political damage to me,” the Charleston Republican told a crowded room of reporters and others about an hour before the start of the legislative session on Jan. 14. “However, the facts still are that I have not broken the law.”

Despite his public profession of innocence, though, Harrell in recent days reportedly has been working behind the scenes to make his ethics case go away through a legal tactic that, a review by The Nerve found, hasn’t been tried in recent memory by a target of a state grand jury investigation, and doesn’t appear to be authorized under state law or by court order to be done in secret.

at The Nerve.

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