Kim Strach to be reassigned

The glaringly obvious conflict of interest finally caught up to her:

Andrew Whalen, executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, issued a statement late Tuesday, saying that party officials raising concerns about Kim Strach's potential conflict in the campaign flight investigation. She should have stepped aside and let someone else handle the probe, Whalen said.

"In our view, Ms. Strach should have recognized her conflict and recused herself, and the inquiry should have been handled by someone who was not compromised by a conflict of interest," he said in the statement. "At minimum, she had an obligation to include our raising of her conflict in the timeline or the report, but she did not."

I'm glad to see this issue being resolved, but the MSM should have been probing this a long time ago. And the way WRAL presents this story is horrible. It's an article about a conflict of interest, but they don't reference the actual conflict (husband-wife connection) until deep in the story. And this is how they present it:

Critics, including North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Tom Fetzer, said they believe Bartlett and the Democrat-controlled board worked to ensure Perdue, a Democrat, didn't look bad.

Sources also told WRAL News that Perdue campaign attorney John Wallace raised conflict-of-interest questions about Strach’s handling of the flights investigation because her husband, Phil Strach, was legal counsel for the state Republican Party.

The GOP filed the original complaint against Perdue with the board. There’s no indication that the questions of Kim Strach's marriage had ever been raised during prior cases.

So Tom Fetzer gets his little say, the husband is mentioned, then the inference is made that the marriage issue is purely political, not ethical.

It's one thing to miss or "fail to report" the conflict of interest. But this article actually seems to defend or downplay said conflict. Cullen Browder should (and probably does) know better.