NC governor rescinds election board appointment after allegations of misconduct surface
Gov. Roy Cooper’s office has rescinded the appointment of James “Carr” McLamb Jr. to the state elections board, one day after the governor named him to the board on Tuesday.
The decision to rescind the nomination came after The News & Observer inquired about it and allegations that had surfaced about McLamb’s treatment of a former girlfriend.
McLamb was one of six names the North Carolina Republican Party provided the Democratic governor after two previous Republican board members resigned following a vote to settle a lawsuit about how the board handles absentee ballots.
Following McLamb’s nomination, his ex-girlfriend told The News & Observer that she made a call to a contact at the governor’s office Friday. She said she hoped that quietly detailing sexually aggressive and emotionally abusive behavior by McLamb would stop Cooper from appointing him to the board in the first place. When that didn’t work, she went public.
On Tuesday night, the Raleigh Protection Alliance, which says it provides a safe place for survivors to share their experiences, published McLamb’s accuser’s story on Instagram. She was not identified.
“I have wanted to get this off my chest for more than three years now,” she wrote in the Instagram post.
In the post, the woman alleges McLamb relentlessly pressured her to have sex by lying on her body or waking her up repeatedly through the night until she gave in. She also alleged that he videotaped a sexual encounter without her consent and in one instance, pinned her against a wall and screamed in her face that he would destroy her career.
McLamb, in an email sent by Jonathan Felts, who works in communications and crisis management, denied the allegations in a written statement.
“These anonymous allegations were launched against my character just hours after I was appointed to a partisan role that could have national implications,” McLamb said. “As a general rule, I do not respond to anonymous attacks, but let me be very clear, I never assaulted anyone or forced anyone into unwanted actions. I’m fortunate to have dated smart, successful women and all of my relationships have helped to make me a better person.”
‘I fell for it’
McLamb’s accuser also spoke with The News & Observer Tuesday on the condition that her name not be published because she fears retaliation. The N&O also interviewed three of the accuser’s friends. Each said she told them during the relationship about the alleged emotional abuse but after the relationship ended about their more extreme encounters.
McLamb’s accuser provided The News & Observer with emails the couple sent to each other and more than 25 photos of the couple when they were together. The emails illustrate a rift between the couple three months before they broke up, in December 2018, but do not mention the alleged misconduct.
When McLamb and his ex-girlfriend started dating in December 2016, she was working in state politics, and he was working as general counsel for North Carolina’s Department of Transportation.
“We dated for two years,” she told the N&O. “We were friends before that. He came off as this very nice, timid, just super vanilla guy.”
Things were going well, she said, but six months in, their relationship took a turn.
“He would just blow up at me and leave me at bars, you know, parties or whatever,” she said.
A year into their relationship, she learned McLamb was seeing other women. When she confronted him about it, she said, things “got scary.”
She said she caught McLamb messaging other women multiple times. At one point he kicked her out of his house when she confronted him, she said; at other times it would result in verbal altercations.
In a phone interview with the N&O Tuesday night, she recalled a time when she and McLamb were playing a game with McLamb’s sister and brother-in-law while visiting them in Wilmington.
During the game, she hovered her hand over McLamb’s mouth to prevent him from accidentally giving away an answer. He smacked her hand away, she said.
After the game, the couple went outside and walked to a friend’s guesthouse. She was visibly upset, and by the time they got inside, he confronted her, she said.
She told him she was upset he had smacked her in front of the others.
That’s when McLamb got angry, she said. His accuser said she sat down at the head of the bed. She said McLamb straddled her, grabbed her arms and pinned them by her head. Then he began screaming in her face, she said.
“(He said) he was going to end me and ruin me and destroy my career and that he could take me down with one word,” she said.
She said she left and began throwing up outside. She tried to stay out of the guest house where they were staying long enough for him to fall asleep, she said.
But he hadn’t. He repeatedly tried to convince her to have sex with him, “and I freaked out,” she said. “And it was like that for the rest of the night until he finally passed out.”
McLamb’s accuser said throughout the relationship, on a regular basis while drunk, he would lie on top of her and ask for sex, or he would wake her up every 20 minutes throughout the night. She would finally give up and give in.
At another point in their relationship, she discovered that he also secretly recorded them having sex and found multiple photographs of another instance.
He refused to delete the footage, she said. “I felt stupid, and I felt like a slut,” she said.
They broke up after a year, but within a week he convinced her to date him again.
“Like an idiot, I fell for it,” she said.
Another year went by with hints that there were still more women, she said.
She said her breaking point came after a planned date at a concert. McLamb told her the concert was sold out, and he couldn’t get a ticket for her and was just going with his guy friends. She questioned his honesty because the concert featured an unknown band at a small venue.
The next morning she got a phone call from a friend. That friend had spotted McLamb with another woman, she said
“I broke up with him,” she said. “I called him and said come to my house as soon as you get off work and explain this or we’re done.”
He tried to deny anything happened, she said.
For the woman, she said the two years of dating him between 2016 and 2018 was “systematic emotional destruction.”
‘She was that scared’
The N&O spoke with two friends of the accuser. Both said they were fearful of retaliation and would only agree to be identified by their middle names — Marie and Mary.
A third friend, who McLamb’s accuser met in middle school and now lives overseas, also talked to The News & Observer about the relationship.
The News & Observer has confirmed the women’s identities, how they know the accuser and how long they’ve known her.
Marie and Mary both met McLamb’s accuser in college. Mary showed N&O reporters the text of a group chat in which three friends considered holding an intervention. But they decided their friend wouldn’t listen, the texts show.
Marie said her friend initially would give them information about fights, other women and emotional abuse but as the relationship continued details became scarce.
“When we would try to get more information out of her, it’s almost as if she would get scared to tell us more information,” Marie told the N&O. “We couldn’t quite figure out what that was about because we were always very open with each other.”
Marie said the worst of the messages they received from their friend came on the night he kicked her out of a cab, in the winter of 2018, with a dead cell phone battery.
“That’s when we all knew something really bad was happening,” Marie said. “But again, he gaslighted her so much that anytime we tried to talk to her about it she would defend him or think we were coming after her relationship.”
Marie said their friend had a strong personality, was a feminist and empowering. She added that it was odd to watch her friend change so drastically.
It wasn’t until months after the couple’s final breakup that friends would learn the more serious allegations, but Marie added that her friend’s stories have been consistent since then.
Marie said she wants McLamb to have consequences for his actions. But she also know he was really good at covering up what he was doing, she said.
“I mean, she couldn’t even confide in us because she was that scared,” Marie said.
Governor’s office responds
The accuser said that she called a contact in Cooper’s office on Friday hoping that her story would quietly stop McLamb’s appointment to the state board of elections. She would not disclose who she spoke with, but Marie said she was present when the call was made.
She said she got a call from someone on the appointment committee in the governor’s office on Monday saying despite her story, Cooper had decided to appoint McLamb.
That’s when she decided to write the Instagram post.
When contacted by the N&O Wednesday, Cooper’s office confirmed that an “unnamed individual” had called the office to report concerns about McLamb. Late in the day, the office issued a statement rescinding McLamb’s appointment.
“The State Board of Elections has critical work to do to ensure a fair, safe, secure election,” said Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said in an emailed statement. “The work of the board does not need any more distractions and our office has canceled this appointment and will review the NCGOP’s other nominees.”
McLamb’s accuser provided screenshots from her phone that showed she told Cooper’s office who she was and talked with someone from the office Friday and Monday about her allegations.
Porter added that while the governor’s office appoints the nominees, the rules dictate that he must choose from a slate of nominees put forward by the state Republican Party. He added that outside of a state ethics review, the party is responsible for vetting the candidates it puts forward.
“We understand there is, once again, a vacancy on the State Board of Elections. Governor Cooper has two highly qualified nominees for that position and we encourage him to swiftly appoint one of those nominees,” said NC GOP spokesman Tim Wigginton in a statement to The N&O.
In his statement, McLamb accepted Cooper’s decision.
“I value public service, but I agree with Governor Cooper’s spokesperson that the State Board of Elections does not need additional distractions at this critical time,” McLamb said.
McLamb’s accuser didn’t know about the rescinded appointment Wednesday afternoon when reached by The N&O.
“Oh my god,” she said. “I’m trying not to cry. ... This is such a relief. This is exactly why I came forward.”
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This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 10:12 PM with the headline "NC governor rescinds election board appointment after allegations of misconduct surface."
