By Mark Memmott

A surprising twist in this week's oddest story. From South Carolina, The State just reported that:

"Gov. Mark Sanford arrived in the Hartsville-Jackson International Airport Wednesday morning, having wrapped up a seven-day visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, he said."

The newspaper adds that:

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State Media Company, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money. Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student. "But I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford said "... It's a great city."

Update at 11:40 a.m. ET: The State now says Sanford plans a 2 p.m. ET news conference.

Update at 9:40 a.m. ET. State senator: "Lies. Lies. Lies".

The Associated Press writes:

Sanford's spokesman Joel Sawyer declined to comment Wednesday morning. The governor did not return cellphone messages seeking comment and his critics slammed his administration for lying to the public.
"Lies. Lies. Lies. That's all we get from his staff. That's all we get from his people. That's all we get from him," said state Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia. "Why all the big cover-up?"

As we wrote when this post was first published, there would be "More Questions About S.C. Gov.'s Whereabouts As He Returns To Work." That would seem to be an understatement.

Here's the rest of our original post:

When he gets back to his office today, Republican South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will have even more questions to answer about where he's been for the last five days or so.

If you haven't been following the news about the Republican governor the past few days, the short version is that he left home sometime over the weekend and no one seemed to know just where he was. It took a day or so for his aides to finally report that the governor had gone off, alone, to hike on the Appalachian Trail.

But today, as The State writes, there are reports that the governor might have been at airports in Columbia, S.C., and Atlanta at times when he was said to be hiking. Of course, he could have flown to a point along the trail and then headed off into the woods.

On All Things Considered yesterday, South Carolina's lieutenant governor (who's also a Republican) said Sanford should not have gone off without telling him and others in state government.

The Democratic National Committee, by the way, has seized on the story to produce a Web video called Where's Sanford?.

categories: National News

7:42 - June 24, 2009

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