On Tuesday the SC Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether Judge Casey Manning ruled properly when he ended Attorney General Alan Wilson’s grand jury investigation of South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell. Wilson and Harrell are both Republicans and this has become a very nasty inter-party battle.
The Center for Public Integrity recently wrote a comprehensive report of the investigation of Speaker Harrell by Attorney General Wilson.On a recent Thursday, a light rain was washing against the office window of South Carolina’s first-term attorney general, Alan Wilson. On the floor near his desk, about a dozen thick black binders spilled out of the bottom shelf of a bookcase and onto the carpet. Inside each of them: supporting documentation from a 10-month state police investigation into the sitting House speaker, Bobby Harrell, a fellow Republican and arguably the state’s most powerful politician.
“And that’s just a preliminary investigation,” said Wilson, gesturing to the pile.
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The judgment by the SC Supreme Court will have long-lasting ramifications for how South Carolina government institutions interact and are accountable to each other.
At issue in the whole matter is a simple question: Does the state’s top prosecutor, Wilson, have the right to initiate a state grand jury investigation of S.C. House members for possible criminal violations of state ethics laws?Harrell is under investigation for allegedly converting large amounts of campaign contributions for his personal expenses. Campaign contributions are supposed to be used for political purposes. Harrell has said he has done nothing wrong and claimed Wilson is on a witch hunt.
Ironically, the entire Wilson-Harrell legal drama was one of the reasons that doomed ethics reform measures in the South Carolina State House this year.