Exhibit 2 — $75 Million
$75 Million, Straight to His Old Law Firm
Alan Wilson's rise to success was fueled by a convenient loan from a bank led by his former boss at Willoughby & Hoefer. Once he took office, he rewarded the firm with millions of dollars in contracts funded by South Carolina taxpayers.
Before he was Attorney General, Alan Wilson was a lawyer at Willoughby & Hoefer in Columbia. In 2010, the firm's Mitchell Willoughby represented Wilson's campaign before the South Carolina Supreme Court.23
Five days before the 2010 Republican primary, Wilson's campaign took out a $250,000 loan from First Community Bank of Lexington, a bank whose board Mitchell Willoughby chaired. The loan made up more than half of what Wilson reported raising for the primary and made his campaign look far stronger than it was. He paid it back in full two weeks later, after the numbers had done their job. His primary opponent said the loan made the difference.4
Once Wilson took office, the favors ran the other way. From 2011 to 2017, Willoughby & Hoefer collected nearly $1.2 million in work from his office.4 Then came the big one. In 2020, South Carolina won a $600 million settlement from the federal government over plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site, the largest settlement in state history. Wilson handed more than $75 million of it to two private law firms under contingency deals he signed himself, and one of those firms was Willoughby & Hoefer.5
Solicitor David Pascoe said the payout “reeks of political cronyism.” Governor Henry McMaster, a Republican, questioned it. Watchdogs sued and called the fees “unconscionable.” The courts let the firms keep the money.5,22
The Willoughby and Hoefer families, their firm's lawyers, and their farm companies have given Wilson's campaigns $105,000.8