The party chairman, Robin Hayes, was charged with five counts, including bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. The indictment accuses Hayes, a former congressman, of helping to route $250,000 in bribes to the re-election campaign of Mike Causey, the insurance commissioner.
Hayes, the most prominent of four people who were charged, did not respond to a message. Causey, who reported his concern to authorities, was not charged in the indictment, which a grand jury returned last month, and did not immediately comment.
In a statement, Causey said his department “continues to cooperate with the federal authorities on this investigation.” He otherwise declined to comment.
But Tuesday, federal officials depicted Hayes and the others who were indicted, including Greg E. Lindberg, chairman of an investment firm and a prolific political contributor, as unscrupulous power brokers who wanted to use campaign donations to influence Causey and his agency’s work.
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“These men crossed the line from fundraising to felonies when they devised a plan to use their connections to a political party to attempt to influence the operations and policies of the North Carolina Department of Insurance,” John A. Strong, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a statement.
The charges against Hayes represent only the latest chapter of tumult in North Carolina Republican politics. In February, the state board of elections ordered a new vote in the 9th Congressional District after it concluded that a voter-turnout operation, financed by the Republican candidate’s campaign, had tainted last November’s election.
On Monday, Hayes announced he would not seek another term as state party chairman. In a statement announcing the decision, the party cited “recent, although temporary, issues with his mobility.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.