Sanford Staff Had No Clue How to Reach Him

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 14, 2009 6:15 AM CDT
Sanford Staff Had No Clue How to Reach Him
A protester holds a sign as she joins a rally calling for Mark Sanford's resignation at the Statehouse in Columbia, SC, last week.   (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)

Mark Sanford's embattled staffers really didn't know where he was when he bolted to Argentina to visit his lover last month, the State reports. Emails and phone records show that Sanford's chief of staff called the governor's cell phones 15 times during the trip without getting an answer. His communications director, meanwhile, told curious media that Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail, as Sanford had indicated to his staff.

"The governor is hiking along the Appalachian Trail,” the chief of staff wrote after Sanford had been missing for several days. “I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting" for a "more definitive idea of what part of the Trail he was on." Email records also reveal that Sanford declined a dinner invitation from a company seeking to expand into South Carolina because it conflicted with his trip to Argentina.
(More Mark Sanford stories.)

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