RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s top adviser in state government is resigning, a state official said Wednesday, marking another staff separation for the Republican candidate for governor after CNN reported he posted explicit racial and sexual messages on a pornography website’s message board.
Brian LiVecchi, Robinson’s chief of staff and general counsel, will step down next Tuesday, according to Sen. Benton Sawrey, who has known LiVecchi for years. LiVecchi did not respond to a phone call or email Wednesday seeking information about staffing changes in the lieutenant governor’s office. Sawrey, however, said LiVecchi had given him the authority to confirm his departure.
“Brian and his team worked every day to make North Carolina the best state in the country,” Sawrey said. “He is a true public servant who led by example and approached every issue thoughtfully.”
Over the weekend, Robinson announced that four key members of his gubernatorial campaign staff had resigned, including senior adviser Conrad Pogorzelski IIi and campaign manager Chris Rodriguez. Pogorzelski on Sunday separately named eight campaign staffers who had resigned, decimating the team just six weeks before Robinson’s election with Democratic nominee Josh Stein. Robinson vowed to rebuild his campaign staff and remained optimistic about the election’s outcome.
CNN’s report last week uncovered posts Robinson made on a porn site’s message boards in which he called himself a “black Nazi”; said he liked transgender porn; preferred Hitler over then-President Barack Obama in 2012; and criticized the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.”
Robinson, who would become the state’s first black governor if elected, has denied writing the messages, which CNN reports were written more than a decade ago. He said Tuesday that his campaign has hired a law firm to help investigate how what Robinson calls “false smears” came about. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from distancing themselves from Robinson. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump endorsed Robinson before the March primary and has had Robinson speak at the former president’s rallies in the state. But he was not present at Trump’s rallies on Wednesday in suburban Charlotte and this past weekend in Wilmington.
The Republican Governors Association has withdrawn its endorsement of Robinson, with no new ad placements. Stein’s campaign and his allies have outdone Robinson and his support groups, running ads and posting videos criticizing Robinson for his past inflammatory comments on abortion, LGBTQ+ issues and the role of women. Other Republicans in the state have said that if Robinson does not quickly provide evidence to refute the allegations in the CNN report, the GOP will have to focus on other crucial races in the state at stake.
Robinson said in a message on X that he had spoken to Republican leaders in the state Wednesday morning “and made it clear: This is an election about policy, not personalities… From President Trump to our local community officials, we must vote Republican.”
The lieutenant governor’s office is small — the office’s website lists eight employees — and Robinson’s duties are limited. They include presiding over the state Senate and serving on the State Board of Elections. His office also handles constituent services. Robinson tackled other issues, such as encouraging work-study programs and opposing what he saw as political indoctrination in public schools. The lieutenant governor’s four-year term, like the governor’s, ends at the end of the year.
