A spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield says the SBI and Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby have cleared one of the insurance company's lobbyists in a alleged attempted bribery case handed over by the Legislative Ethics Commission.

Ken Wright, a veteran lobbyist for the insurer, was accused of trying to bribe Rep. Fred Steen, a Rowan County Republican in May. Ethics committee leaders declared, without naming either Wright or Steen, that Steen had done the right thing and the case had been referred to law enforcement officials.

Blue Cross spokesman Lew Borman said Willoughby and the State Bureau of Investigation looked into the matter and found no evidence of a crime.

"We're grateful to the SBI and the Wake County District Attorney for their thorough, swift and professional investigation," Borman said. "Ken is a valuable member of the Blue Cross family. We're pleased, but not surprised, and the matter is closed."

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The State Bureau of Investigation is also investigating former Gov. Mike Easley.

Attorney General Roy Cooper's office confirmed in a letter Monday to Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger that the SBI is working alongside the FBI in examining Easley's activities. Federal officials have sought testimony or evidence related to a Carteret County land development where Easley bought a lot, car dealers who provided free vehicles to Easley and the N.C. State University officials who hired Easley's wife and gave her an $88,000 raise.

"Attorney General Cooper earlier this year directed the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate matters related to the former Governor and other issues," wrote Kristi Hyman, Cooper's chief of staff. "Our agents have been working with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Cooper oversees the SBI, which also worked with federal agents on the prosecution of former House Speaker Jim Black in 2007.

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The SBI has ended its probe into the purchase of portrait by former state mental hospital director Patsy Christian without action.

The investigation was requested by the state Department of Health and Human Services in June following reports in The News & Observer about a painting of herself that Christian commissioned from J. Lee Harris, a hospital nurse who sidelined as an artist, reports Michael Biesecker.

The artwork was paid for using vending machine revenue from John Umstead Hospital that the state budget manual says should be spent to benefit patients.

Following public uproar about the portrait, Christian resigned her position as chief executive officer of Central Regional Hospital in Butner and was reassigned to a newly created position within the department at 95 percent of her former salary.

DHHS Secretary Dempsey Benton ordered that the portrait not hang in the new hospital for which it was commissioned and that state money paid for the artwork be recovered. Harris refunded the $572 she was paid for the "executive portrait" and its gilded frame.

Though state law explicitly forbids the awarding of state service contracts to state employees, Erik Hooks, an assistant SBI director, wrote in an Aug. 14 letter that he had concluded "no further inquiry by the SBI is necessary at this time."

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The state will not pay for a portrait of the director of the new Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

Dempsey Benton, head of the state Department of Health and Human Services, announced this afternoon that no state funds will be used to pay for a portrait that a department employee did of her boss, hospital director Patsy Christian.

Benton has also asked the State Bureau of Investigation to look into the events surrounding the painting to make sure no laws were broken.

"This was not a department-initiated action," Benton said in a statement. "There will be no state expenditure of funds for this painting, and I have directed that any funds thus far expended be reimbursed immediately to the state. This portrait will not be a state asset."

The painting was to hang in the new state psychiatric hospital.

The man hired for a state emissions specialist job that prompted an SBI investigation into the Division of Motor Vehicles has put in his two-week notice.

James Burgess, a former purchasing clerk for Progress Energy, won the DMV job last year over a State Highway Patrol mechanic who has been training mechanics to do emissions inspections for roughly a decade, reports Dan Kane. Burgess is a childhood friend of the director who oversees the emissions program, John Robinson.

DMV spokeswoman Marge Howell said Burgess resigned today. She did not know why, and said if she did, she couldn't provide it because the state's personnel law prohibits the release of that information.

DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said earlier this morning that Burgess is an employee in good standing. Gore said he was unaware of any improper conduct on Burgess's part regarding his winning the emissions job.

A top state Division of Motor Vehicles official announced today that he is retiring.

The announcement by John Robinson comes two weeks after two members of his staff were placed on investigatory leave as part of a probe into the hiring of his longtime friend, reports Dan Kane.

Robinson, 59, will retire June 14 after working for the state for 21 years. He is paid nearly $108,000 annually.

As director of the DMV's License and Theft Bureau, Robinson oversees roughly 200 employees. The bureau investigates theft and fraud involving vehicles and drivers, and it also runs the emissions inspections program.

DMV Commissioner Bill Gore said Robinson's retirement had nothing to do with an incident in which Robinson's childhood friend won a job as an emissions specialist last year. The friend, a former purchasing clerk for Progress Energy, won the job over a longtime State Highway Patrol mechanic who has been teaching mechanics to do emissions inspections for roughly a decade.

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State Rep. Thomas Wright has been paid 19 times for subsistence and travel to Raleigh for various meetings involving the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

But in eight of those cases, Wright should have already been in Raleigh for legislative sessions and received reimbursement from both DHHS and the legislature, according to an audit released today, reports David Ingram of The Charlotte Observer.

Thomas Berryman, the DHHS director of internal auditing, also wrote that Wright twice received $104 in subsistence from the department even though the department paid for his lodging directly, and that Wright claimed excessive mileage on one trip.

The "questionable payments" totaled $1,404.71, Berryman wrote. He recommended a further inquiry by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Wright, a Wilmington Democrat, is already under investigation over his campaign finances and his attempt to purchase property with an apparently false guarantee of state funds. House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Democrat, and others have called for Wright's resignation.

Berryman's office also found that a publicly funded N.C. non-profit paid $35,000 over two years to Wright to develop a network of health-care providers, but that now it can't find a copy of the contract.

Wright did not return a message left on his mobile phone.

For a few moments this morning, Jim Black was at ease.

Asked on the witness stand about how he ran for speaker in the late 1990s, Black went into detail about who voted for him, how other candidates did and what the vote count was, reports Ryan Beckwith.

Leaning back in the witness box, Black spoke at length and fairly clearly, with an almost professorial air.

That came back to haunt him this afternoon, when State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Randy Myers contrasted it with Black's hazy recollections of a $500,000 loan in 2000.

He said he wasn't sure before interviewing Black how much the former speaker would remember, pointing out the difference in his recollections today.

"I didn't know what to expect then -- or even now," he said.

The Joint Legislative Ethics Committee will investigate Rep. Thomas Wright.

Or maybe not. It could just refer the case to an outside investigator or the State Bureau of Investigation.

The committee released a statement noting that it had received a referral from Speaker Joe Hackney on Wright's campaign finance irregularities. 

Because the legislature's rules allow the committee to operate in secrecy, it's hard to say what that means, beyond the Sphinx-like statement of co-chairman Rep. Rick Glazier: "It means what it says."

The Wilmington Star-News has the story. Laura Leslie has a good analysis on Hunter's Tavern: 

Essentially, what Glazier said (as far as I can parse it) is that the Joint Ethics committee isn't dismissing the Wright complaint outright. But that's about all we know.

The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into Rep. Thomas Wright.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby requested the state agency look into the Wilmington Democrat's campaign finances after reviewing them.

The Wilmington Star-News has a brief story here.