North Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham has evidently avoided answering questions about whether further claims of extremarital affairs might arise in future.
Questions posed to the candidate emerged during a conference call when it was suggested that his personal life had become “fair game” given his own comments about his personal life, for which he said he had already taken responsibility.
Polls have consistently given Cunningham a lead over the Republican incumbent, Thom Tillis, in the race for U.S. Senate. As The Atlantic reported, he was supposed to be the boring candidate but the news about an allegedly intimate relationship have proved anything but so far as the news media and electorate are concerned.
Cunningham is a former state senator and an Army veteran, and the former Kilpatrick Stockton attorney received a bronze star for service in Iraq as LawFuel previously reported.
The Atlantic noted that Cunningham “isn’t an especially notable personality, and he hasn’t taken any especially notable policy stands. But running against Tillis, who is not especially popular, especially well known, or especially charismatic himself, that seemed like it might be enough. Then came the sexting scandal.”
And there began the bad press for Cal Cunningham.
“Let me be clear, I’ve taken responsibility for the hurt I’ve caused in my personal life,” Cunningham said. “I’ve apologized for it, and I know that this campaign, our campaign is about things that are much bigger and more important than just me.”
“North Carolinians are looking for somebody who is going to take on the monumental challenges ahead of us,” he said with reference to the COVID-19 battle.
But reporters were intent on asking about his need to be clearer on issues relating to women who might come forward regarding allegations of relationships with him and the distraction it would cause him if elected.
Cunningham was reportedly asked four times about whether more allegations could surface in the future after it was disclosed that he was under investigation by the US Army Reserve about the allegations.
Cunningham agreed earlier that a series of sexual text messages he exchanged with a woman who is not his wife with both parties identified online as the wife of an army veteran.
“I am deeply sorry for the hurt I have caused in my personal life and I also apologize to all of you. And I hope each of you watching at home accept this sincere apology and that we will continue to work together to change the direction of our country and strengthen our state,” Cunningham said.
The text messages and interviews offered a view if Cunningham that is at odds with the image of a devoted family man as has been painted of the candidate. The conservative website, NationalFile.com, published text messages between Cunningham and Arlene Guzman Todd, a public relations strategist from California, that suggested a personal relationship.
The Associated Press report of the texts, which are between Guzman Todd and a friend, provide a specific timeline about their recent relationship, as well as details that describe intimate encounters which was more than one involving mere texting.
In a series of interviews late Monday as well as in the text messages, Guzman Todd described two in-person encounters with Cunningham. One was in March in Los Angeles that she said did not include intimate contact, and a second was in July in North Carolina, where she said they were intimate.
“A few months back, I displayed a lapse in judgment by engaging in a relationship with Cal Cunningham during a period of marital separation,” Guzman Todd said. “The relationship spanned several months and consisted primarily of a series of text exchanges and an in-person encounter.” She did not elaborate, but her text messages described the intimacy.
- Shock Move Sees Wachtell Litigation Stars Walk to Rival
- Trump DOJ Subpoenas 14 Big Law Firms in ABA ‘Intimidation’ Fight
- Linklaters Smashes Record as Aggressive US Expansion Pushes to Unprecedented FY26 Heights
- Freshfields Cut Its European Partners. Its New York Partners Got A Raise.
Freshfields’ US growth ambitions has forced out equity partners across London, Paris and Germany, the Financial Times reported on 13 July, weeks after a pay overhaul left dozens of its roughly 500 partners holding fewer equity points. Freshfields reset its internal exchange rate from $1.60 to the pound down to about $1.30, then handed extra points to its top US earners so their dollar pay held. Points are a share of a fixed pool and Freshfields’ European partners are the pool. The Financial Times reported this week that Freshfields has culled equity partners in recent weeks, with its London headquarters and its Paris and German offices all seeing exits and equity downgrades. City AM ran it as a shake-up to fund the American push, which it is. What neither write-up reached is the ledger entry that explains it, and that ledger entry has been sitting in public since March. Log in to read . . . - The Judge’s Brutal Verdict on the Lawyering Behind Harry’s £50m Mail Disaster
- How Trump Turned Big Law Lobbying Into A Billion‑Dollar Profit Engine
When Donald Trump turned Washington into a rolling policy experiment, most law firms braced for chaos, but a handful quietly built something else: – a brand new profit engine. Lobbying and government‑relations work, once treated as a sideline for politically connected partners, has become one of Big Law’s fastest‑growing business and a new career path for lawyers from DC to Westminster The Trump‑Era Shock For decades, lobbying has sat on the fringes of large law firms and what they traditionally do. There were always a few partners with good contacts, intermittent mandates, and work that was important but they were rarely central to the firm’s story and what the firm really ‘did’. Log in to read . . . - What Does the KPMG Scandal Means for Law Firms and Internal Investigations
- Kennedy’s Report 12th Year of Growth As The Firm Moves Towards Its $1 Billion Target
