North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley ran the North Carolina Republican Party for years. During that time, members of his own party came to him — repeatedly, they now say by name — to warn him about a man in the party's leadership.

The man is Harvey West Jr. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to five counts of taking indecent liberties with a child, involving three girls under the age of 16. He was a 28-year-old police officer in Washington, in Beaufort County, at the time. He served six years in prison and spent ten years on the sex offender registry.

Whatley appointed him to the committee that writes the party's rules. Then he did it again.

What the reporting found

Cardinal & Pine reported on August 5 that West held a string of positions in the North Carolina GOP:

• Chair of the party's 1st District, until March 2026
• Member of the Plan of Organization Committee — the body that writes the party's rules — appointed by chairman Robin Hayes from 2013 to 2017, and by Michael Whatley from 2021 to 2024. He left the committee in May 2026.
• Host of the Down East Judicial Picnic, an annual fundraiser for judicial candidates, starting in 2020. The latest one was held on September 20, 2025.

Read that third one again. An annual fundraiser for judicial candidates — the people who preside over criminal cases — was held at the home of a man who pleaded guilty to sex crimes against three children.

They told him. In person. Wearing a shirt about it.

This is not a case of a party leader who didn't know.

Michele Woodhouse was the Republican district chair for NC-11 in 2021. She went to a district chairs meeting that year wearing a #MeToo t-shirt, specifically to force the issue. She says she went to Whatley about it multiple times. Here is what she recalls telling him, in her own words to Cardinal & Pine:

"I have grave concerns that we are, as a party, condoning a judicial fundraiser at the home of a man who plead guilty to sexual crimes against three minor girls."

At the meeting, she says, she called for a closed session, raised her concerns and was verbally attacked by West. Then:

"Michael [Whatley] quickly gaveled down the meeting, ended that closed session."

She raised it. He shut the meeting down.

Michael Magnatti, who served as the Granville County Republican Party chair, warned the party too — and told them exactly how this was going to go:

"This man has been convicted. He pled guilty. He served [prison time.] He was on the sexual offender registry for ten years. This is going to come out and it is going to bite you in the ass."

Magnatti was right. It has come out. He is now a candidate for the United States Senate and it is on his record.

The rule that would have stopped it

Some Republicans tried to fix this from the inside. They pushed for a clause in the party's rules — a felon or morality clause — that would keep people with convictions like West's out of party leadership positions.

Whatley's role there, according to Magnatti, was "very noncommittal." He didn't endorse it and he didn't openly oppose it.

To be fair to Whatley: after the clause initially failed, Magnatti says Whatley "came and encouraged me, afterwards, he encouraged me to not quit, to not give up."

So the man with the gavel encouraged the clause's author not to give up while staying noncommittal on the clause itself — and, in the meantime, kept appointing West to the committee that writes the rules the clause would have changed. Between 2021 and 2024, that was Whatley's appointment to make.

He made it.

Whatley's problem is a pattern, not an incident

If this were the only time Whatley had been asked about someone convicted of a sex crime against a child, it would still be a serious question for a Senate candidate. It isn't the only time.

Whatley — the former Republican National Committee chairman now running for the Senate seat Thom Tillis is vacating — has called the January 6 prosecutions a "ridiculous persecution" and backed paying the rioters Trump pardoned, including after it became public that some of the people those pardons freed were later convicted of child sex crimes.

Two different situations. Same instinct both times: the party's interest first, and the kids somewhere after that.

North Carolinians have also watched police get called on reporters trying to cover his campaign events — another moment where the reflex was to shut down the question rather than answer it. Gaveling down a meeting is the same move with different equipment.

What this says about the job he's applying for

Whatley is asking North Carolina to send him to the U.S. Senate. Senators confirm federal judges. They vote on laws about child protection, on victims' rights, on how the justice system treats people convicted of crimes against minors.

The case for him is that he ran a state party well and then ran the national party.

The record from that time is that when his own district chairs came to him — one of them wearing a #MeToo shirt to make sure he couldn't miss the point — about a convicted child sex offender hosting fundraisers for judges, he closed the meeting.

And then he put that man's name back on the committee that writes the rules.

Source

Dylan Rhoney, "Republicans say they warned NC GOP leaders for years about convicted sex offender's party roles," Cardinal & Pine, August 5, 2026. Photo: AP.