Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks to supporters at a campaign event at Brantley’s Village Restaurant in Oriental, North Carolina on Aug. 29, 2024. (Photo: Galen Bacharier)
The campaign for North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson said Tuesday it has hired an attorney to investigate CNN’s reporting into Robinson’s online history.
CNN’s report detailed a history of explicit sexual and racial comments made by the GOP gubernatorial nominee on a pornography website over a decade ago.
Jesse Binnall, partner at the Alexandria, Virginia-based Binnall Law Group, will be leading the investigation into the story.
“My team and I are looking forward to getting to the bottom of CNN’s claims and we will bring all our resources to bear in getting to the facts,” Binnall said. “Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, his family and the voters of North Carolina deserve nothing less.”
Binnall has previously represented former President Donald Trump in multiple cases stemming from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot and was involved in election-related lawsuits after the 2020 contest.
Robinson has denied that he made the online comments, calling them “salacious tabloid lies.” And he’s said he wouldn’t let the story “throw us off of our mission” on the campaign trail.
WRAL reported Monday that Robinson rejected multiple offers from supporters to connect him with IT specialists to investigate the comments, citing anonymous sources.
In the days since the story’s publication, staff have left the campaign en masse, the Trump/Vance presidential ticket has stopped inviting Robinson to North Carolina events and the Republican Governors’ Association has halted ad spending in the state.