A grand jury in North Carolina on Monday moved closer to charging Attorney General Josh Stein with violating the state’s questionable laws on truthfulness in political attack ads, the AP reports. The investigation stems from an ad in which Stein’s campaign called out his 2020 Republican opponent, Forsyth County DA Jim O’Neill on his office’s handling of rape kits. O’Neill had lodged a complaint with the State Board of Elections in September 2020 over the Shapiro attack ad, which said his office had “left 1,500 rape kits sitting on a shelf,” an assertion O’Neill said was false because law enforcement and not prosecutors are responsible for processing that evidence.
A federal judge last month suspended enforcement of this law and Stein’s campaign has a case pending before an appeals court for an injunction, which could come before Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman’s grand jury hands down an indictment. Like we wrote last month – partially misidentifying Stein as “Shapiro” because sometimes we fuck up and get Democrat North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein mixed up with Democrat Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro – the law is well-intended but really poorly written, even to laypersons who don’t know shit.