Mark Robinson's top aide resigns after CNN report

CNN
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The top aide to Mark Robinson, North Carolina's embattled lieutenant governor, is expected to resign after CNN KFile reported that Robinson made inflammatory and racist comments on the message board of a pornography website.

Brian LiVecchi, Robinson's chief of staff and general counsel, will resign next week, according to a source familiar with the matter. His departure is the latest in a series of high-profile resignations by Robinson employees following the CNN report last week.

Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, has already lost most of his campaign staff when he resigned on Sunday, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director and his senior and general advisers.

The New York Times and WRAL reported Wednesday that Robinson's political director, communications director and government affairs director also resigned. CNN reached out to these employees but did not receive a response.

Robinson announced a new chief of staff Thursday morning on X and said he promoted Krishana Polite, his deputy chief of staff, to the top job.

Robinson's lewd comments included calling himself a “black Nazi,” describing how he “watched” women at a public gym as a 14-year-old, and posting his support for the reinstatement of slavery on the porn website Nude Africa expressed.

Robinson included his full name in his profile for Nude Africa, as well as an email address that he used for decades on numerous sites across the Internet.

In an interview with CNN last week, Robinson repeatedly denied making the comments on Nude Africa.

“That’s not us. These are not our words. And that’s not something that’s characteristic of me,” Robinson said. Confronted with a litany of evidence linking him to the username on Nude Africa, Robinson said: “I'm not going to go into detail about how someone made this up, these salacious tabloid lies.”