RALEIGH, N.C. — Attorney General Josh Stein’s 2020 campaign is facing a criminal investigation — but the law it’s based on is outdated and unconstitutional, he argued Thursday in court filings as well as in an interview with The News & Observer.
Stein said the law in question, which governs the content of political ads, is nearly a century old and yet had never been prosecuted — until his 2020 opponent for the attorney general’s office, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, cited it to request the investigation.
The criminal investigation has not been publicly reported before; The N&O had reported that O’Neill had requested an investigation. Stein said he was making it public Thursday and filing a lawsuit because he’s confident that the investigation is based on an unconstitutional law but that O’Neill “refuses to give it up.”
