TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
TALK 94.5 Liz And Nick
AG GOP CANDIDATE DAVID STUMBO STOPS BY 6/17/26
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All right, and joining us right now is a DOP candidate in the runoff for Attorney General, David Rodumbo. Good morning, sir. David, what is your understanding of what the Office of the Attorney General does? Because a lot of people sometimes say, well, how come you know you can't do this or didn't do that? So give us a clear picture of what it is and how you would uh you would change or do things differently or you know continue on with the same of what we have experienced under the previous uh or the current AG.
SPEAKER_02Right. So the the uh the AG is your chief prosecutor for the state under the Constitution, so the AG has the authority to come into any jurisdiction and and uh work cases. Of course, your circuit 16th circuit solicitors, one of which I am right now, generally are you know have the authority, and the AG allows them to have the authority to prosecute their caseloads in the counties where they were elected by the people, which makes sense. You want the people's representative to do that work. Uh, but the AG has an over overall supervisory authority over the solicitors, uh also has a kind of a direct connection to the sheriffs, to the state law enforcement division. So chief prosecutor role is to kind of be the tip of the spear for the criminal justice system. Uh I plan to be all over the state meeting with law enforcement leaders regularly. I have a lot of them endorsing me in this race. Over 30 sheriffs and solicitors are endorsing me because they I have great relationships with them. So that's uh the main job. But the second job is to be the chief lawyer for the state. So when the state is sued, when uh laws are challenged, their legislature passes, um, when when we have to get involved with maybe some national litigation because there's companies that are affecting the quality of life of our citizens, uh, the AG can get involved with other attorneys general around the country that are conservative in particular, so we fight back on federal overreach and those sorts of things. So there's a lot that the AG does. Also, the opinion section of that office advises local governments uh and and on all host of different issues, legal issues. So uh that the attorney general, you need a chief prosecutor that's been in the trenches of the prosecutor, but you also need a conservative Republican if we want to maintain our values. So that my plan would be to go into that office and do the things that the first job is to make sure our Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is healthy and vibrant, because that's the first job I ever had uh as a lawyer, as a prosecutor. And so we need to make sure pedophiles aren't walking out the courtroom with probation. Uh, and I'm gonna really be focusing on that job, beefing up that unit, and making sure that we're gonna protect our kids online. But there's a lot of other things that are involved in that office. Uh I do want to get our human trafficking task force strong and vibrant as well. Uh, I want to be the kind of AG that is communicating regularly with our leaders around the state and making sure that our communities are strong and that we're rooting out any kind of corruption that's uh out there as well in the local government. So that's another huge role that the AG plays. And I'm gonna treat those cases like any a murder case or any other case. We're gonna go with the evidence leads and and uh fight crime, investigate, and indict when necessary, and uh hold people accountable.
SPEAKER_01We're speaking with the GOP candidate for the runoff for Attorney General, uh David Stumbo. So I have to ask you, um, you know, we had a situation here, and a lot of people were paying attention to the young woman who was murdered on a train in Charlotte, but we had our own situation here with uh uh Logan Federico, who was murdered by a career criminal that actually had more uh convictions than the man that was on the train in Charlotte. So what can you tell us about how we can keep the bad guys and girls in jail and why are some of these career criminals just constantly it feels like there are many of these criminals that are still out there able to prey upon society over and over and over again. Is there something you can do as Attorney General to address that problem?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I'm gonna use the bully pulpit of that office to fight for judicial reform. Obviously, the legislature ultimately has to pass it. And what at my plan would be we need a constitutional amendment to just get rid of the JMSC, which is, I think, not a useful entity anymore. We need the governor to appoint, so the governor is accountable for judges. You know, that's why we elect conservative judge uh governors to appoint conservative judges, just like we do on the presidential level. Uh we need that with the legislative confirmation, that'll balance the the uh the branches of government better, and the separation of powers issue to me is a real problem right now because the legislature 100% dominates the judicial appointment process. That is a major problem. In a magistrates court, the senators pretty much unilaterally control that for their given area, appointing magistrates, which is another major problem. So we need judicial reform. I'm gonna use the bully pulpit of the office because that ultimately is what it comes down to. When there's no accountability with your judiciary low bonds, uh light sentences, you see those regularly. That's what I've lived the past 22 years and frustrations as a prosecutor seeing that uh statewide. So judicial reform is the first answer. We need truth in sentencing, Liz, as well. That's another major problem. You know, you so basically right now in South Carolina, most of our sentences, you don't even nobody knows what they really mean when you leave the courtroom. A judge may give a 10-year sentence on a whole host of different crimes, and the person, the defendant may serve two or three years and be out. And I still, even as a prosecutor, am trying to figure out sometimes the math that's used on these max outdates. We need everybody to know in the courtroom what the sentence means. That was one of the issues I saw in the Federico case where Logan Federico was murdered. You had a guy that actually was convicted of some crimes, uh, got sentences that you would have thought would have put him behind bars for some amount of time, and he didn't serve hardly any time on those sentences. And so I think that's one of the problems, too, these early releases. We need the legislature to pass a bill that says here's what the sentence means when the judge renders it in court. It's not some uh hieroglyphics that you have to kind of interpret on the sentencing. Some of the crimes we have in our state are like that murder, rape, uh big high-level drug trafficking. Some of them are 85% crimes, which means they don't get parole. You know exactly when they leave the courtroom when they're getting out. But we need that for all offenses uh so we can have a little be a little more stable and uh reliable with what we're doing in the courtrooms.
SPEAKER_01All right. And we are um soliciting questions from our budget blinds text line. So anybody listening has a question for AG GOP candidate David Stumbo. The number is 843-798-8255 on the Budget Blinds Text line. Do you have any questions?
SPEAKER_00There was one that came through the lot of talk, and we've even talked to our own uh 15th solicitor about this as well, about the influence of outside money like Soros buying these very liberal, left-leaning progressive prosecutors and such. Is that something you're aware of? Have you run across it? And how would you handle that being the AD of the state?
SPEAKER_02Well, I can tell you this. We're gonna continue and as long as I'm breathing to elect conservative prosecutors. I mean, Jimmy Richardson is a conservative prosecutor that y'all have in your area in the 15th Circuit. He's a longtime friend of mine. But at the end of the day, yes, Soros and his PACs, one of the big uh the main area that they've been funding these races has been district attorneys across the country. I don't know that, to my knowledge, that he's funded any South Carolina uh circuit solicitor races, but if he does, we're gonna be very alerted to that and make sure that we're uh we're we're supporting and electing conservative solicitors in this state and conservative attorneys general. Because the bottom line is if we have and there's a reason Soros is doing this, he wants chaos. And the quickest way to create chaos is to elect a progressive DA. Look what's going on in San Francisco, New York City, LA, Philadelphia, anywhere where they've elected a progressive Soros-funded DA, the place law and order is broken down very quickly, and it goes to pot. That's why we're having all these folks move to South Carolina now because we do it differently here. So we got to be careful to preserve that and maintain that, not let liberal forces like Soros and his people come in here and change our quality of life.
SPEAKER_01So just to go back to your previous answer, um, we're speaking with David Stumbo, can't GOP candidate for attorney general for the runoff. Um one of the things you said was, you know, you wanted to uh be the bully pulp pulpit for how judges are uh selected. And the problem is, I believe this is my understanding of it, is that there are too many defensive leg defensive attorney legislators in the legislature that are handpicking to make their life easy in court for their you know uh accused uh uh clients. And so when I was watching the AJ debate, which was a very informative, I really got sad uh listening to all three of you at the time talk about how corrupt how how much of corruption is in our legislature. And then I was thinking, is it it feels like it was is corrupt? How corrupt is it? Because all of you were were referring about rooting that out. So tell us where is the corruption or how is that manifesting and impacting us, and what can you do about it as Attorney General?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, some of the stuff that goes on now, you know, corruption is a very broad term. You know, you have some stuff that is not on paper illegal, you know, influence that's exerted by uh uh legislators that are lawyers on the judicial rip uh process, for example, that that um is the way we elect judges right now, unfortunately, and they have the power to elect and re-elect and fund the judiciary. And that's not uh it's not uh any legal thing that that's going on, but it's certainly when those judicial candidates go down to Columbia every year, when they're running around the state house begging for votes from the God of the same guys that are going to be appearing in front of them in court later, how is that a system that is a healthy way to do business? It's not. And so that that, for example, you hear the term corruption. Well, that's the way that's legal right now, the way we do it. Now, they can't, you know, overtly threaten a but that's you know, it's funny how that happens, right? You know, the kind of wink and the nod thing. Well, you know, you know, you're coming up for election in uh a couple years, Judge Smith or Judge, you know, Judge So and so. Uh that that is a is a the way the systematic way we do it is a problem. And it and it the the people look at that and say, well, that's corrupt. What's it it, you know, in a very colloquial sense, yes, it is, but we've got to change systematically the way we do it. I mean, certainly if there is money changing hands for votes and that sort of thing, and there's bribes, and yeah, we're gonna there's evidence of that, we're gonna get after it. And if we have evidence of crimes being committed, uh, you know, for votes and that kind of stuff, we're gonna investigate it, and if we have evidence, we're gonna prosecute it. But a lot of that that's a really broad term about what we see go on in the legislature sometimes, and we just need to make sure that it's on the up and up. Everything that's going on is transparent, that everything that's going on, if there's conflicts of interest with votes, that that legislators aren't uh abusing their power in that way. And so I we're gonna keep them accountable from the AGC.
SPEAKER_01Before we run out of time, I needed to ask you this question because I don't know what the role is of Attorney General in this. Um we know that there are a lot of um uh illegal immigrants working and they're they're working all sorts of jobs and uh we just saw a big bust happen um in the upstate regarding this and accounted for this documents and all that stuff. What is the role of the Attorney General when it comes to things like businesses saying, hey, well I don't know what you guys are talking about. I use e-Verify and then I you know and I and I know that there are people getting sort of fraudulent documentation that all checks out and disguised through the e-Verify system. So there is a broken system. What is the role of the Attorney General in that to protect us from illegal immigrants taking our jobs and also putting us at risk driving trucks and all that stuff?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, on the state and local side, we have to be working very closely with uh our federal partners. Homeland Security was very involved in that case you just mentioned. I can't talk a lot about it because I'm on the prosecution side of that. I was very involved with the investigation for a couple of years, uh, state and locals. That happened in Abbeville County, which is in my circuit. Uh, but yes, that's going on more than just in in Abbeyville. We're seeing, you know, when businesses are enabling uh the flow of illegals uh to come in here and work and then actually stealing the uh the identity of people to do it, uh that's a real problem. And so we need from the state perspective, we have state immigration uh investigators at SLED. We need to be working very closely, hand in glove with our federal partners to make sure we're rooting out uh these crimes that are being committed to enable illegal immigration. Uh and go after the the businesses here that are doing it and the the that that are that are breaking the law, not not just the uh you know the people that come here to get a better life. Look, we're not you know we're we're gonna it remove them from the country, certainly, if they're here illegally. But we need to go not just do that and stop. If the people are enabling it, we need to make sure they're held accountable.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh I would like to give you the last um 30 seconds here to ask for the vote.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'd love to have everybody's vote out there today, tomorrow, and next Tuesday for Attorney General. I'm the conservative prosecutor in this race. I have over 22 years of experience fighting crime in the trenches. Sheriff's solicitors all over South Carolina are endorsing my candidacy because they know uh the level of work and the leadership I'm gonna bring to that office. So I would ask everybody, all your listeners, to go out and vote and vote David Stumbo for Attorney General on June 23rd.
SPEAKER_01All right, and you also got uh Congressman Ralph Norman's endorsement recently.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we are honored, honored to have it. So uh yeah, we're he's gonna be at a press conference with me today in Rock Hill with uh some sheriffs and solicitors up there. So honored to have Congressman Norman's uh endorsement.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, good luck to you. Um the uh AG GOP candidate David Stumbo. What is your website? People can read more.
SPEAKER_02Yes, www.votestumbo.com. Votestumbo.com.
SPEAKER_01Good luck to you and thank you so much for your time.