With Biden-appointed US Attorney gone, what is future of NC GOP spending probe?
One person named as a “relevant party” in federal subpoenas demanding information on state legislative spending worked closely with a former judge who advised Donald Trump on how to try to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.
Another “has been a buddy of mine,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a crowd at a groundbreaking of the Catawba Indian Nation casino in Cleveland County last June. A third was a delegate to at least two Republican national conventions that nominated Trump for president.
That history is suddenly very relevant to those wondering about the fate of the secretive, federal investigation that has targeted records linked to all three men: Marion Warren, Aaron Thomas and Jordan Hennessy.
Michael Easley Jr., whose office issued the subpoenas, this week stepped down as U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of North Carolina. Democrat Joe Biden appointed Easley and Republican President Trump will appoint his successor,who will be based in Raleigh.
“It’s a fair concern,” Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political science professor, said of the possibility that a Trump appointment could end an investigation. “Not that it will happen, but that it could and we should be watching.”
The News & Observer revealed the federal investigation in July after obtaining a grand jury subpoena seeking information on COVID relief money given to a nonprofit looking to fight domestic violence with technology. That subpoena named Warren and Hennessy as relevant parties.
At least four more subpoenas were served after that, one on the state university that employs Warren, the other three on Dare County and several of its commissioners. State legislators starting in 2018 earmarked millions of dollars for two projects in the coastal county.
Because federal grand jury investigations are secret, the full scope of their probes are unknown. But the grand jury that issued the subpoenas met as recently as mid-December, subpoenas show.
Known ‘people of interest’ in NC
Marion Warren is a former Republican state judge who ran the state Administrative Office of the Courts under former Chief Justice Mark Martin. When Martin became Regents University’s law school dean in 2019, Warren joined as a senior associate dean.
Two years later, Martin advised Trump that he had the legal means to halt the electoral count after the 2020 presidential election, according to the U.S. House committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jordan Hennessy has been involved in Republican politics since he was a teenager growing up in Dare County. He was 21 when he became a delegate to the national GOP convention in 2016 and was a delegate again at the 2024 convention.
Aaron Thomas is CEO of Metcon. His company is building the Catawba Two Kings Casino. Donald Trump Jr. attended the groundbreaking and praised Thomas.
Each man also has connections to spending by North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature that subpoenas show have been of interest to a grand jury.
Hennessy was a legislative aide to former state Sen. Bill Cook when he and other lawmakers appropriated $15 million from the 2018 state budget to Dare County to spend on a dredge that would help keep navigational channels open.
Hennessy later became the CEO of a new company, EJE Dredging Service, that won the $15 million dredging contract. Subpoenas indicate the federal grand jury was looking at that spending.
In 2020, Warren and Hennessy submitted significant parts of bill language for state legislation that provided $3.5 million to Caitlyn’s Courage, the domestic-violence nonprofit. A legislative attorney at the time questioned the provision, saying it was that it was so specific in describing an acceptable tracking system that most companies might be excluded from bidding.
A year later, Thomas and Metcon partnered with Hennessy and others in founding an affordable housing company just before state lawmakers appropriated $35 million to Dare County to build low-cost housing under special conditions. Warren was listed in contract documents as a “member-manager.”
Lawmakers repealed the funding last year after Dare County towns threatened a lawsuit over a provision inserted late into the 2023 state budget that barred them from having a say where the housing would be built.
Thomas, Metcon and Soar Capital, a real estate investment company that had listed Thomas as a “managing member,” were named as relevant parties in a grand jury subpoena delivered to Dare County officials in October that sought information about the $35 million appropriation.
The Republican-led General Assembly passed all three appropriations in omnibus spending bills, with legislative leaders providing little information on why the funding was included. The News & Observer has been investigating those and other atypical legislative expenditures in the investigative series Power & Secrecy.
Cook is the only past or present lawmaker named as a relevant party in the subpoenas. The Beaufort County Republican advocated for the $15 million in 2018 to pay for the dredge for Dare County. He didn’t seek reelection that year.
In a phone interview last October, Cook called the investigation a “fishing operation.” Warren, Hennessy and Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
Who picks U.S. Attorneys?
U.S. presidents at or near the start of their administrations typically select the roughly 100 U.S. attorneys serving in federal judicial districts across the country.
Presidents often seek recommendations from U.S. senators who share their political party and represent those districts, or run potential nominees by them as a courtesy, said Brett Curry, a Georgia Southern University political science professor who co-authored the book “U.S. Attorneys, Political Control and Career Ambition.”
Once a nominee is named, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate must approve the candidate.
There is precedent for leaving U.S. attorneys in place to see through political investigations. In 2009, newly elected President Barack Obama kept U.S. Attorney George Holding as he led investigations into former Gov. Mike Easley and U.S. Sen. John Edwards, both Democrats. (Easley is newly departed U.S. Attorney Easley’s father.)
Then-U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, recommended Holding stay in the position.
State Sen. Graig Meyer, an Orange County Democrat, said the Trump administration should appoint someone who will follow the North Carolina investigation to its logical end, but is not confident that will occur.
“A change in presidential administrations shouldn’t change prosecution of political corruption, but obviously the new president is more comfortable with political corruption than anyone else in recent memory,” Meyer said.
During his campaign for re-election, Trump repeatedly stated that he would use the power of the presidency to punish his perceived political enemies, and last week, his acting attorney general fired the career prosecutors who worked on the corruption cases against him.
Presidents can replace U.S. attorneys immediately with an acting U.S. attorney while the nomination process is underway. The Trump administration did so with U.S. attorneys in New York and Washington.
The Washington, D.C. appointee, Ed Martin, has drawn criticism over his support for the defendants who attacked and overwhelmed police as they stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of the election results that landed Biden in the Oval Office. Trump issued pardons and commutations for those charged in the riot, and Martin last week dismissed roughly 30 prosecutors who worked on the cases.
In an interview, Easley stressed it was his decision alone to step down.
“That’s my decision, not driven by any kind of political pressure or encouragement or anything else,” he said, adding that he will take time to decide his next professional step.
His chief deputy, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Bubar, began serving as acting U.S. attorney this week. That’s the typical process for U.S. attorney vacancies while a nominee is being chosen.
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis is working to identify nominees for the three U.S. attorney offices in North Carolina, among other federal positions in the state, he said.
“So we’ve got a process that we’re running through with the members of the congressional delegation,” Tillis said. “I get them to have input, but it’ll ultimately be a decision that Ted Budd and I make.”
When The N&O asked Tillis how the integrity of an investigation involving people with connections to President Trump might be preserved as a new U.S. attorney is selected, the senator indicated he has confidence in the integrity of district staff.
“The U.S. attorney can only do so much themselves, so I would have to find out who the lead prosecutor is and determine if I thought there was any challenge,” he said, adding: “the integrity of that department is pretty strong.”
During Easley’s tenure, the office’s staff grew by 17%, increased white collar crime and organized crime investigations and took more than 750 guns off the streets, according to a press release announcing his resignation.
A collaborative violent crime action plan prioritized national-scale crimes harming local communities, including drug distribution and money laundering, and helped reduce homicides in several North Carolina cities, the press release states.
“We’ve gotten the office in a really good position,” Easley said.
Power & Secrecy is a News & Observer investigative series exploring both in North Carolina state government, especially the N.C. General Assembly since 2011, when Republican lawmakers won control of both chambers. Find stories at newsobserver.com/topics/power-secrecy.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "With Biden-appointed US Attorney gone, what is future of NC GOP spending probe?."
