Gov. Mark Sanford heavily mixed business and pleasure during a three-day trip in 2008 to Argentina to visit his lover, records released by the South Carolina Department of Commerce show.
Sanford has reimbursed taxpayers about $3,300 for the trip — one of seven times he said he rendezvoused with Maria Belen Chapur. Sanford has said it is the only time he has met her while on state-funded business.
The records show that on June 25, 2008, Sanford left the rest of the South Carolina delegation who had taken part in a Brazilian trade mission and a private dove hunt in Cordoba, Argentina, to go to Buenos Aires, accompanied by just a state Commerce Department staffer.
It was an unusual place to talk trade.
Argentina defaulted on its foreign debts in 2002 and tilted politically left. The U.S. Department of Commerce had not conducted a trade mission in the country between 2002 and 2008. And South Carolina was the first state delegation to visit Argentina since 2005.
Commerce Department spokeswoman Kara Borie said the department set up the Argentine meetings at the governor’s request. Sanford was going to be in Argentina anyway, so why not lay the groundwork for some possible trade breakthrough?
Sanford did not steer the trip toward Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, Borie said. That Sanford’s secret lover was there, she said, was a coincidence.
The governor briefly had joined some delegation members for a dove-hunting trip in Cordoba, Argentina, but cut the hunt short to conduct trade meetings in the capital
While the governor had legitimate meetings with Argentine officials, according to his itinerary, he also admitted meeting Chapur in the evenings the first two days and most of the third day.
Read on.
No comments:
Post a Comment