Alan Wilson Ramps Up Efforts To Quash State House Probe

ATTORNEY GENERAL’S MOVES REEK OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE …

Heavy is the head that wears the white hat … especially in ethically-challenged South Carolina.

S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson is stepping up his efforts to shut down a joint federal-state probe into corruption at the S.C. State House – the latest (and greatest) sign that the former “anti-corruption” crusader has sold out completely to the dark side of South Carolina politics.

According to reporter John Monk of The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper, Wilson is “blocking a state grand jury investigation into alleged public corruption in the S.C. General Assembly.”

You read that right … blocking a state grand jury investigation.

That’s the sort of headline a politician doesn’t recover from …

Specifically, Monk reports that Wilson has refused to empower Jim Parks – clerk of the S.C. statewide grand jury – to administer oaths to prosecutors working under S.C. first circuit solicitor David Pascoe.  As a result, Pascoe and his prosecutors are unable to move forward with their investigation even though they – and the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) – have “determined it necessary to utilize the state grand jury’s investigative authority” to pursue their probe.

Pascoe has filed a request with the S.C. Supreme Court in the hopes of forcing Wilson’s hand.  No word yet on whether such a hearing will be scheduled.

Hopefully it will be scheduled soon – and Pascoe will be given the investigative authority he needs.

In the meantime, Wilson’s tactics reek of obstruction of justice – and provide us with the best evidence yet that his office is actively seeking to suppress the indictment of elected officials in his political orbit (a.k.a. the political stable of neo-Confederate consultant Richard Quinn)

Sadly, Wilson’s tactics are nothing new to readers of this website.

Last December, Wilson quietly released an advisory opinion (obtained exclusively by this website) in which he advised Pascoe that several angles of potential prosecution against sitting members of the S.C. General Assembly were unlikely to yield indictments.

Wilson’s office claimed it was simply responding to a request from Pascoe, but there’s no mistaking what happened here: After claiming he was “conflicted” last summer as it related to specific anti-corruption prosecutions, Wilson then attempted to influence these prosecutions by arguing that his political allies were doing nothing wrong.

That is transparently hypocritical …

Mainstream media quickly picked up the story of Wilson’s meddling … which has become a major headache in his bid to become governor of South Carolina in 2018.

Now it appears Wilson had taken his hypocrisy one step further and decided to actively block these investigations.

Exclusively unearthed by this website in September of 2014,”the probe” has already brought down powerful former S.C. Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell – who pleaded guilty to six ethics-related counts, resigned his office and got three years of probation. Now, however, it appears as though the prosecution of Harrell – which Wilson doggedly pursued – was less about accountability and more about moving Harrell out of the way.

“Once viewed as a crusader against public corruption, it’s now readily apparent Wilson has engaged in selective prosecution in an effort to benefit his political allies – many of whom are far more corrupt than the handful of politicians he’s prosecuted,” we wrote earlier this year.

That’s a shame …

But if Wilson is indeed blocking a criminal probe of sitting state lawmakers, it could be more than just unfortunate … it could be illegal.

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