Gov. Sanford's lawyer: 4 private flights unreported
Gov. Mark Sanford's lawyer told the State Ethics Commission required disclosures weren't filed on four of 61 flights investigators questioned as part of a wide-ranging probe of travel and campaign finance practices.
Kevin Hall's Oct. 26 admission is included in nearly 1,400 pages released by Sanford's lawyers earlier this week as the House began an impeachment hearing. The Republican's second term ends January 2011 and he's barred by law from seeking a third one.
The documents include three flights Sanford should have disclosed and one his lawyers say the South Carolina Republican Party should have reported.
"In those few instances in which a flight was omitted from a previous filing, the omission was inadvertent and unintentional and is therefore technical in nature," Hall wrote.
South Carolina law requires disclosures of gifts and in-kind political contributions on annual ethics filings or quarterly campaign finance reports.
In August, an Associated Press investigation found Sanford had not included dozens of flights on those forms. The governor's spokesman said at the time the flights didn't need to be reported because they involved longtime friends.
Sanford's travel and campaign spending have been under scrutiny since he returned in June from a five-day rendezvous with his Argentine lover and confessed a yearlong affair. Since then, investigations by The Associated Press found high-priced travel on commercial planes despite state low-cost travel requirements; use of state planes for personal and political purposes and unreported private plane flights provided by friends and donors.
Ethics Commission executive director Herb Hayden told Sanford's lawyers in an Oct. 8 letter investigators had found 78 private plane flights by sifting through Sanford's schedules. That included 61 the commission said were not reported.
Hall's response shows 13 of the questioned flights were reported and that most of the others did not have to be reported because they involved travel on planes provided by friends and family.
In 2006 during his re-election campaign, Sanford took four flights that Hall said should have been reported.
- A trip from Mt. Pleasant to Aiken and back as Sanford went to campaign events.
- Two trips from Columbia to Conway for a GOP county convention and debate.
- A flight to various stops around the state days before the election that included other statewide candidates and amounted to a contribution by the plane's owner to the state GOP.
The letter instructs the commission to include its description of the flights in the public record.
Because of that, the commission didn't consider the private plane trips as it moved forward with 37 charges against Sanford for commercial and state plane use as well as personal reimbursements from his campaign account.
"With this amendment to previous filings, Governor Sanford will have complied, albeit late, with the filing requirements" under the law, Hayden said in the commission's complaint.
Columbia car dealer J.T. Gandolfo provided 11 flights - more than anyone else. Sanford's spokesman had described him as a longtime Sanford friend. An affidavit Gandolfo provided shows he became Sanford's friend in 2002, the year Sanford announced he was running for governor. Gandolfo said he didn't provide the travel between 2005 and 2008 because of Sanford's position.
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Sources: The State, Huffington Post, Google Maps
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