In 90-degree heat, Gov. Mark Sanford spoke to reporters as traffic on Wade Hampton Boulevard whisked by. Charles Sowell/Staff
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Sanford’s attorney offers defense

Governor tells state he's still committed to transparency

by Anna B. Mitchell

Published Sept. 2, 11:28 a.m.

Click here to read a letter from Sen. David Thomas.

The governor says he has nothing to hide.

To prove it, Gov. Mark Sanford has agreed to waive confidentiality in the State Ethics Commission’s investigation into his use of South Carolina aircraft and the cost of his economic development trips abroad.

It took more than a week of media questions regarding the investigation for the administration – which has said repeatedly it is committed to transparency and government efficiency – to agree the process ought to be open.

Meanwhile, House GOP members over the weekend increased calls for the governor to resign – or undergo impeachment when the next session starts in January.

“Our administration has nothing to hide,” Sanford said in a statement released last Friday. “We would welcome the public to scrutinize our record, just as the Ethics Commission will do.”

Sanford’s statement came on the heels of an impromptu appearance in Greenville – in a field across Wade Hampton Boulevard from the law office of state Sen. David Thomas of Fountain Inn – last Thursday.

Sanford’s aides alerted the media less than an hour and a half before the press conference and never contacted Thomas, who was sitting in his office about 50 yards away watching the press conference on the Internet.

Thomas has been collecting information about the governor’s international flights since early August after Department of Commerce records came to light that showed the governor took business-class seats on four trade missions that cost the state about $14,000 more than a tourist-class seat would have on the same trips.

Thomas has cited the South Carolina Code of Regulations 19-101 and said the governor appears to have violated the letter of the law. That code says, “Transportation to and from points of arrival and departure will be accomplished by the most economical methods.” It also says, “Travel by commercial airlines will be accomplished in coach or tourist class, except where exigencies require otherwise.”

Standing under the sun in a dark suit, Sanford told reporters that Thomas’ investigation was unfair in that the senator was only looking into his flights, and not those of other state officials and previous administrations.

He said the senator also seemed to be playing up to the media to increase his own name recognition. It is no secret, the governor said, that Thomas is running for the 4th U.S. Congressional seat.

In an Aug. 26 letter to Thomas, the governor’s attorney, Swati Patel, wrote the governor has complied with travel laws and regulations in line with more than 30 years of common practice by other administrations and agencies – a practice that legislators knew about and acquiesced to.

“In fact, in some cases it appears that legislators either participated in or knowingly approved of the travel practices that are now being questioned under this administration,” Patel wrote.

In a review of records since 1984, Patel wrote, it appears the Department of Commerce had purchased business class or first class tickets at least 230 times and has spent more than $3,000 on tickets for international flights 160 times. It spent more than $6,000 on 50 occasions.

Sen. John Land, a member of Thomas’ three-member finance subcommittee, took part in a 1999 trade mission to Europe with then Gov. Jim Hodges, Patel wrote. That party’s tickets cost more than $98,000, and Land’s ticket, purchased through the Senate Clerk’s Office, was likely comparable, she wrote.

“Presumably,” she wrote, “Sen. Land and his wife traveled with the rest of the delegation and would have sat in first and/or business class seats.”

After speaking for a few minutes, the governor hopped in a black Crown Victoria and rode to his next appointment – a short speaking engagement to the Greenville Woman’s Club (He told the ladies, as he’d told members of several civic organizations across the state in previous weeks, that he was sorry for his extramarital affair with an Argentine woman and has a shortlist of economic development and government restructuring goals he wished to accomplish before the end of his term next year.)

An aide to Thomas then herded reporters across the street to the senator’s law office, where Thomas said he was already looking at previous administrations to place the governor’s actions into context. He said Sanford was quoting figures Thomas had asked for and characterized the grassy press conference as “bizarre.” He said he wished the governor had come over to talk to him directly.

“I’m worried about the governor,” Thomas said.

Thomas said the actions of previous administrations would certainly be a mitigating circumstance should the state House of Representatives decide to impeach the governor next spring.

But, he said, the governor’s attorney did not answer a key question as to when Sanford studied the actions of previous administrations – before or after his flights came into question.

“The difference is whether they went looking for a defense after the fact,” Thomas said.

He said the governor also has not replied to a request from the senator to appear before his finance subcommittee – a group that peruses the budgets of constitutional figures.

Thomas said if rules have been broken elsewhere in the South Carolina government, everyone could and should be held accountable, but his job is to look at this administration.

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