Kay Hagan: If You Like Your Thief, You Can Keep Your Thief (UPDATED)

On Wednesday, October 7th, Don Carrington, Vice President of the John Locke Foundation, broke the news that North Carolina Democrat Senator Kay Hagan’s husband and son created a solar energy contracting company in August 2010, and then, using $250,644 in federal stimulus grant funds, her husband hired that same company to install solar panels at a building he owns.

The company’s original application stated the total project would cost $438,627, and said JDC would contribute “leveraged funds” amounting to $187,983, or 43 percent of the total. As the project reached completion, however, JDC revised the total budget downward by $114,519 and applied all the savings to its share, keeping all the taxpayer funding.

Public records show that Green State Power was formed seven weeks before JDC Manufacturing—a company owned in part by Greensboro attorney Charles “Chip” Hagan III, Sen. Hagan’s husband—received the stimulus grant for the solar project at a 300,000-square-foot facility in Reidsville, NC.

At a Monday press conference in Raleigh, North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Claude Pope announced that he has asked the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Ethics to investigate Hagan’s involvement with the stimulus grant.

News of Hagan’s payday, which she kept hidden away for years and is now lying about, was picked up by Forbes and Breitbart’s Big Government.

The Companies

• JDC Manufacturing LLC was set up originally as a plastics recycling company, but its latest filing lists its business as real estate ownership and management. The three managers are Kay Hagan’s husband Charles “Chip” Hagan and Chip’s brothers John and David.
• Plastic Revolutions Inc. is a plastics recycling company that leases JDC’s building in Reidsville, which is where the stimulus-funded energy project was installed. John Hagan is the president and Chip Hagan is on its board.
• Solardyne LLC is a solar design and installation company that filed its articles of incorporation Aug. 9, 2010—two days before JDC filed for the federal stimulus grant for which Solardyne performed work. Its 2011 annual report listed the managers as Chip Hagan and his son Tilden Hagan.
• Green State Power is the current name of Solardyne. Chip Hagan filed the name change in May 2012 with the state’s Corporations Division.  A 2013 annual report lists as managers Chip Hagan, Tilden Hagan, and Will Stewart, Chip and Kay’s son-in-law. 

When the conflict of interest first came to light that JDC Manufacturing received grants from the stimulus, Hagan’s campaign stressed that everything was above board and “disputed any suggestion they have profited off the law.”

Hagan had sought legal/ethical advice on the issue from Washington, DC-based attorney Marc Elias of the Perkins Coie law firm rather than going to the Senate Ethics Committee for a legal opinion.

According to Carrington, Hagan’s campaign spending report shows that, through the end of June 2014, over the current campaign cycle (spanning 2013 and 2014) her committee has paid the Perkins Coie firm $155,000.

I want to thank GrimmCreeper, a fellow North Carolinian, for the comment he posted today.  It was his observation that Hagan’s corruption had not sufficiently seen the light of day that prompted me to post this information.  It should be infuriating to the voters of the Tarheel State.

On November 4th, if you like your thief, you can keep your thief OR you can go to the polls and fire Kay Hagan and Harry Reid.

UPDATE 10-18-2014:  The Tillis campaign published the ad “Tucked Away” appearing in the embedded video below.  Once again, Joel Gehrke at National Review is helping to call out the Corruptocrat in what will likely be a devastating October Surprise.

Kay Hagan’s political future may depend on how voters react to the story. The Super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund, plans to spend at least $1 million to bring that message to TV screens across the Tar Heel state, starting next week.