South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division Chief Reggie Lloyd said on Monday that his agency is determined to know how the unemployed Greene got the money to pay the $10,400. filing fee in the Democratic primary. Greene had been granted a public defender from a prior court case, where he filed papers under oath that he was financially indigent and unable to afford an attorney on his own. So authorities have some very obvious questions for Greene.
According to Chief Lloyd, agents now have at their disposal a new law, which allows them to issue an administrative subpoena to financial institutions to force them to produce records during the investigation of financial crimes. And Greene is a prime candidate for this type of investigation.
Greene, a 32-year-old political unknown with no staff, fundraising or website, stunned party officials when he won 59% of the vote in the June 8th primary, setting him up to face GOP incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint, who is heavily favored to win in the fall.
Completely caught off guard by Greene’s 18-point victory, Democratic Party leaders tried to encourage him to withdraw once it was reported that Greene is facing a felony obscenity charge from last November. But he refused, appearing in a series of awkward and terse news interviews, and forcing Democrats to have to accept him as their own. But with his current troubles, it’s anyone’s guess to see how long he actually remains a candidate.
It has been a felony in South Carolina to pay a person to run for public office for several years now. The state has had a long history of hired candidates to disrupt elections, generally hired to run in the Democratic primary in hopes of disrupting or embarrassing the party.While many Republicans relish these sort of dirt tricks, others find it difficult to deal with the rising anger and cynicism it breeds here in both parties. SC politics have always been dominated by anger so overwhelming it blinds the process to dealing with the state's mounting economic and social issues, which as their aggrivated, make people even angrier.