A review of Roy Cooper’s second quarter campaign finance filings with the NC Board of Elections reveals that a donation has come from one of the parties involved in suing North Carolina over House Bill 2 (HB2).

On May 2nd, 2016 Rachel Tiven was made the CEO of Lambda Legal, which is involved on multiple legal fronts involving HB2. In fact, Lambda Legal is involved in the HB2 related lawsuit, Carcaño v. McCrory.  Read  full complaint.

On May 4th, 2016, Tiven, who lists her address in NYC, donated the maximum amount of $5,100 to Roy Cooper’s campaign.

According to the 2nd quarter filings for the Cooper campaign, Tiven listed her occupation as “Attorney” with “Immigrant Justice Corps.” and not that of CEO of  Lambda Legal. According to Immigrant Justice Corps’ 2014 press release, Tiven was named as their new Executive Director.

On July 5th, 2016, Tiven was replaced as Executive Director by Jojo Annobil. While Tiven’s LinkedIn bio lists her as still being the Executive Director, the Immigration Justice Corps. website currently does not list Tiven as being either a staff or board member.

In essence, Roy Cooper is accepting campaign contributions from the partners of Lambda Law, who are currently suing the state of which he has taken an oath to defend.

Arguably there is also the question of ethics for Tiven and Lambda Legal as well.  It would not be unreasonable to think that the National Bar Association and the NC Bar might open an ethics inquiry as to why Tiven would be donating to a candidate who is actively seeking the office currently held by someone who her firm is suing.

Also in question is why Tiven, two days after being named the CEO of Lambda Legal, would then list her employer as other than Lambda Legal in making a campaign donation.

Cooper’s second quarter totals showed that $821,931 came from outside the state of North Carolina.

The top out of state donations were made by 277 donors in New York which totaled $276,930. California came in second with 231 donations to the tune of $92,073. Washington D.C. rounded out the top three, with 136 donations totaling $58,681.

These three states represent more than half of all of the out of state donations made in the second quarter.

Other NY Donations of note include:

04-07-16 George Soros $5,100
04-07-16 Alexander Soros $5,100
04-26-16 William E. Little Jr., $1,000
05-18-15 Lorne Michaels $1,000
05-18-16 George Little, $1,000
06-24-16 William E. Little Jr., $2,000