Governor Sanford, First Lady Taking Personal Trip

Governor Mark Sanford and First Lady Jenny Sanford are taking a personal trip for the remainder of the week.

Governor Sanford's Communications Director Joel Sawyer made the announcement Wednesday morning. Sawyer says the Sanfords are leaving the state, but not the country.

The director says previously listed meetings and briefings that have not already taken place will be postponed until next week.

Nearly 600 pages of emails released by Governor Sanford's Office

E-mails just released by Gov. Mark Sanford’s office show that his affair with a woman from Argentina may have cost more than his political future and embarrassment. He turned down a dinner invitation from a South Carolina company that’s considering expanding its plant here. Before releasing it, along with hundreds of other emails, the governor’s staff blacked out the name of the company, its location, how much it’s considering investing in an expansion and how many jobs that might create.

When asked how the governor responds to the charge that his affair caused him not to give job creation the attention it deserves, his spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said, “The governor has talked in great detail about the mistakes he has made, and has apologized for those mistakes. He is committed to the process of building back the trust of South Carolinians.“

But South Carolina’s unemployment rate is 12.1 percent, third-highest in the country. Judging by the responses of some of the unemployed people of the state, who were at the Employment Security Commission office in Columbia Tuesday, the governor has a lot of work to do.

After hearing about the governor turning down a potential opportunity to create jobs, and his response to that, unemployed teacher Erica Myers said, “It’s not so adequate, as in he’s saying that he’s trying to build trust, but we need to see that he’s working toward helping us to get more jobs. So that’s the way we get trust.“

Unemployed law enforcement officer Daniel Wright says, “I don’t think he can rebuild trust. It’s time for him to move on.“

The dinner invitation was for June 24, so the company is probably still considering an expansion. But since the company’s name and other information was blacked out, we don’t know.

The emails also show that the governor turned down another invitation, this time to celebrate the expansion of another South Carolina business. The reason his scheduler turned down the invitation was that “his schedule has him totally jammed.“

You can download the emails and read them by clicking here