Stumbo vs. Goldfinch for Republican AG Nomination

By Paul Gable

When Stephen Goldfinch announced his campaign for Attorney General, he told the Coastal Observer newspaper he had prosecuted “hundreds” of cases as a JAG officer in the SC National Guard. Throughout the campaign, that number expanded to “thousands” on at least one occasion.

The Attorney General is the state’s top prosecutor. Evidently Goldfinch felt the need to establish his credentials as a prosecutor. But, the numbers don’t add up.

David Stumbo, Goldfinch’s opponent in tomorrow’s Republican Primary runoff for the Attorney General nomination, has been the Solicitor for the state’s 8^th Judicial Circuit for over a decade.

According to military justice statistics, the average JAG officer conducts 3.5 prosecutions per year. An exceptional JAG prosecutor may conduct as many as 20 prosecutions per year. These numbers are for full-time active duty JAG officers in the four service branches.

Goldfinch joined the National Guard in 2019, merely seven years ago. IF, and it’s a giant if, he matched the total number of prosecutions per year of an exceptional active duty JAG officer, Goldfinch would only total approximately 140 prosecutions to date – noy hundreds, certainly not thousands.

Goldfinch’s exaggerations about his National Guard service are not limited to prosecutions. Victor Dabney, a SC House member for House District 52 and a retired Army veteran pilot of Apache attack helicopters, posted on Facebook:

“Let’s get back to Goldfinch. I hate a lying veteran and this guy Goldfinch is one. Believe it or not, this chubby guy was in the National Guard just a couple of years ago and was deployed to N.E. Africa. Long story short, he hurt his shoulder while working out in the gym, but now claims he was injured when he jumped into a bunker to avoid a hand grenade attack. Folks, you can’t make this up, but Goldfinch sure did…and he was foolish enough to brag about this lie to quite a few of his friends and colleagues, and this is how I discovered this.”

Tomorrow’s primary runoff election for the Republican nomination for Attorney General pits Stumbo, a veteran prosecutor with over a decade of experience, against Goldfinch, a guy who makes things up.