U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows will replace Mick Mulvaney as chief of staff, and Mulvaney will become special envoy for Northern Ireland, President Donald Trump said Friday.
An ongoing lawsuit involving Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff, is being shielded from public view, prompting a legal challenge in South Carolina and raising questions about what the court records might reveal about the former Republican congressman.
Brian Gibbons, a judge in South Carolina’s 6th Circuit, issued an order in November that sealed a number of documents in a civil case involving two companies that Mulvaney shares an ownership stake in.
Among the records blocked from public disclosure is a sworn deposition of Mulvaney, whose political career launched him from the South Carolina Legislature to Capitol Hill and into Trump’s inner circle.
The lawsuit centers on a dispute over a real estate project that Mulvaney and other investors tried to undertake in 2007 during Mulvaney’s first term in the South Carolina Statehouse. That business plan ultimately fell apart.
Now, Charles Fonville, a minority partner in the deal, is alleging the companies tied to Mulvaney — Lancaster Collins Road LLC and Indian Land Ventures LLC — have tried to cut him out of the $1.4 million he invested in the property in Lancaster County.
The allegations in the lawsuit are complicated. But the dispute comes down to whether one of Mulvaney’s companies can foreclose on the other one and prevent Fonville from getting back the cash he invested in the 14-acre piece of land along U.S. Highway 521.
Members of the U.S. Senate questioned Mulvaney about the property dispute during a confirmation hearing in 2017. The lawsuit in Lancaster County court also garnered local and national media attention last year.
It’s with that backdrop that Gibbons agreed to seal the court records in November.
