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Berger Defends Using Campaign Cash For Raleigh Home Payments

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Guilford, pictured here in 2016 (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)

State Senate Leader Phil Berger is defending himself after questions were raised about his campaign finances. 

The Rockingham County Republican has been making payments on a Raleigh house that he and his wife own using money from his campaign.

The $1,500 payments have gone through a firm Berger manages.

Bob Hall, a retired leader of a campaign finance reform group, wants the state Board of Elections to investigate the transactions. 

Berger's campaign says the payments are lawful and that state officials knew about them. The former executive director of the State Board of Elections, Kim Stracht, approved the payments in 2016, and that decision was reaffirmed in the spring. 

State law allows campaign money to be used for expenses resulting from running for or holding office.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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