Easley is now going through the names of his campaign staff in 2000 and 2004. There were alot of the same players. Horne, Reiff, Hayden was new. Louisa Whitney and Kathryn Hicks worked with Reiff.
He said he did not work get involved with the day to day functions of the campaign, but it seems he did a much better job of remembering all the players of his campaigns than any of the previous witnesses. He did have a very big problem with the way the campaign spent money – thinking money was wasted in a big way. He said he worked very hard stanging on hard wood floors shaking hands for hours at a time and to see money wasted didn’t sit well with him.
When asked who initiated the calls he and Bleeker, Easley said that he remembered the last time he talked to Robert Bleeker, he (Easley) was vacuuming his fireplace and the hose broke.
other witnesses claimed that Easley’s son did not work much in the campaign, former Governor Easley disagreed. Michael Easley Jr. did research and traveled with the campaign.
Easley agrees that McQueen Campbell and his family were friends. Easley said that Campbell wanted to do more with the campaign in 2003 and 2004 than he was in 1999 and 2000. Easley was using the state plane more in the 2004 election because he was doing state business half the time and campaign business half the time. McQueen Campbell was involved in real estate, hog farms, construction repair. Easley brought up a relationship between McQueen Campbell and Carolantic Realty.
Barker Realty was the management company for the Easley’s Raleigh House while the Easley’s lived in the Governor’s Mansion. Easley thinks that Campbell worked with Steve Stroud’s son or son-in-law and Easley went to Campbell for home repairs because he rememberd he did that kind of work. According to Easley, Mr. Campbell developed a relationship with the renters and they (the renters) called Campbell directly instead of the management company. Easley did agree that he could have asked Campbell to get another estimate for home repairs.
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