RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson said Tuesday his campaign has hired a law firm to help investigate a CNN report stating he made explicit racial and sexual posts on a pornography website’s message board.
The lawyers will look at how what Robinson calls “false smears” originated.
The announcement comes as more North Carolina Republicans disturbed by last week’s report said that if Robinson can’t formally refute the accusations quickly, the GOP should shift its focus to competitive in-state races.
Other Republicans already have abandoned Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor. The Republican Governors Association said Monday it will no longer support Robinson. His campaign had benefitted from the group spending millions of dollars in advertising in his race with Democratic nominee Josh Stein, whom polls have shown leading Robinson. Most of Robinson's top campaign staffers also quit in the report's fallout.
GOP officials are anxious that Robinson’s situation could pull down Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the battleground state, and threaten the outcomes of other key seats on the ballot.
“He should conclusively and quickly prove false the allegations against him," Hal Weatherman, who is seeking to succeed Robinson as lieutenant governor, said on X. Weatherman runs separately from Robinson but received his endorsement. “If he can prove this isn’t true and was fabricated to hurt him, he will win in a landslide. But if he fails to do so, he will lose, because the comments being attributed to him are highly disturbing.”
Robinson, a favorite of the state GOP’s conservative base and who would be the state’s first Black governor if elected, has denied writing the messages from more than a decade ago, well before he became active in politics. In a news release, Robinson said he was confident the Binnall Law Group from northern Virginia “will leave no stone unturned and enable us to use every legal means to hold CNN accountable for their lies.” Firm partner Jesse Binnall has represented Trump and his campaign in litigation.
CNN's report unearthed posts it said Robinson left on a porn site’s message boards in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI;” said he enjoyed transgender pornography; said in 2012 he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama; and slammed the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.” Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments on abortion, LGBTQ+ issues and the role of women that Stein and his allies have used against him for months.
CNN didn't immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment. Last week, CNN said it had matched details of an account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name. CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information..
At a campaign event Monday, Robinson said he would be "coming after CNN full throttle.” He hasn't provided evidence that would counter the broadcast report.
Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina endorsed a Robinson rival in the March gubernatorial primary and has questioned Robinson's qualifications for the post. Speaking with reporters Tuesday in Washington, Tillis proposed that Robinson should by Friday present evidence that would form the basis for litigation to "defend his name or in the absence of a defense, then we’ve got to move on.”
Robinson was endorsed by Trump before the primary and has spoken at the former president's in-state rallies. But he was not involved in a Trump rally in Wilmington last weekend and Trump didn’t mention him. Trump has another North Carolina event on Wednesday.
Speaking in Charlotte on Monday, Trump running mate JD Vance said it was up to North Carolina voters to decide what they think of Robinson's messages and whether they believe Robinson’s defense.
A Republican Governors Association spokesperson said this week that no further ad placements had been made in the race after Tuesday.
Data from AdImpact, which monitors campaign spending, shows that the RGA and a separate political action committee associated with the group had spent at least $15.9 million on television and online advertising in the North Carolina general election race. Stein's campaign and his allied groups have widely outspent Robinson and his allies during the general election so far, according to data.
The deadline for any North Carolina gubernatorial candidate to withdraw from the race was Sept. 19.
FILE - North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks before Republican presidential nominee former president Donald Trump in Asheville, N.C., Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley, File)
The Pac-12 is suing the Mountain West over what it calls an unlawful and unenforceable “poaching penalty” that would cost the rebuilding conference more than $40 million for adding Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State and San Diego State, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.
The antitrust complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California and is seeking a declaratory judgment by a judge.
“The action challenges an anticompetitive and unlawful ‘Poaching Penalty’ that the MWC imposed on the Pac-12 to inhibit competition for member schools in collegiate athletics," the lawsuit said.
The Mountain West has exit fees of upward of $17 million for departing schools. Those fees can increase depending on how much advance notice a school provides, and are not at issue in the lawsuit.
The Pac-12 is challenging poaching fees that were put in place in the Mountain West's football scheduling agreement for this season with Oregon State and Washington State, the only current Pac-12 members this season.
The fee starts at $10 million and increases by an increment of $500,000 for every additional school the Pac-12 adds from the Mountain West. With four already on board, the total is $43 million.
Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said in a statement the Pac-12 agreed to the fees and acknowledged that they were essential to her conference members.
“The provision was put in place to protect the Mountain West Conference from this exact scenario. It was obvious to us and everyone across the country that the remaining members of the Pac-12 were going to try to rebuild,” she said. “The fees at issue were included to ensure the future viability of the Mountain West and allow our member institutions to continue providing critical resources and opportunities for our student-athletes. At no point in the contracting process did the Pac-12 contend that the agreement that it freely entered into violated any laws.”
The Pac-12 also extended invitations on Monday to Mountain West schools Utah State and UNLV.
Utah State was admitted, according to the lawsuit, though neither the school nor the conference has made an official announcement.
Adding Utah State and UNLV would cost the Pac-12 another $24.5 million and leave the Mountain West with only six members, two short of what is required to be recognized by the NCAA and College Football Playoff.
The Pac-12 contends in the lawsuit that the “severe” exit fees the Mountain West has in place already compensate for the loss of departing members.
The Pac-12 argues the poaching penalty had nothing to do with the intent of the deal between Oregon State and Washington State and the Mountain West, which was to provide those schools with six football opponents this year for a $14 million payment to the league.
“It extends beyond the Scheduling Agreement's terms, it does not affect the schedule in any respect, and it does not in any way impact the amount of football played, games scheduled or anything related to the 2024-25 scheduling of games,” the lawsuit said.
“Instead, the Poaching Penalty serves only to increase the MWC's profits by locking up its member schools and preventing them from leaving for a competitor (Pac-12)."
The scheduling deal was not renewed for next year.
Oregon State and Washington State are in the first year of a two-year NCAA grace period during which they are operating the Pac-12 as a two-team conference.
By 2026, the Pac-12 needs at least eight members to be recognized as a conference by the NCAA and CFP.
The first phase of Pac-12 expansion began two weeks ago when it announced the additions of Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Colorado State, four of the Mountain West's traditionally most successful football programs.
The Pac-12 then targeted a group of American Athletic Conference schools but was rebuffed by Memphis, UTSA, Tulane and South Florida.
As the Pac-12 pivoted back to Mountain West schools, the Mountain West was trying to lock up its eight remaining members through a grant of rights agreement that binds schools together through the conference via television rights.
Some Mountain West schools signed a memorandum of understanding and returned it to the conference on Monday, but when Utah State did not, it allowed the others to reconsider.
Now, with the Pac-12 suing the Mountain West, it's unclear whether either conference can move forward.
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Pac-12 files federal lawsuit against Mountain West over $43 million in 'poaching' penalties
FILE - The Pac-12 logo at Sun Devil Stadium during the second half of an NCAA college football game between Arizona State and Kent State in Tempe, Ariz., Aug. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Ralph Freso, File)
Pac-12 files federal lawsuit against Mountain West over $43 million in 'poaching' penalties
