‘He needs to be held accountable’: Rhode Island GOP files ethics complaint against McKee over Scout lunch

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The Rhode Island GOP filed an ethics complaint against Gov. Dan McKee with the Ethics Commission over a lunch he had with a lobbyist and Scout Ltd. in January.

“Rhode Island has a monumental ethics problem,” said Joe Powers, who’s the head of the GOP. “[McKee] took a free lunch from a lobbyist [and] top officials who demand gifts from a state vendor.”

McKee, said Powers, thinks the controversy about the free lunch is just people “‘making a mountain out of a mole hill.'” However, he said this is just the “tip of the iceberg.”

The GOP leader claims that McKee’s free lunch and the donations he took from a state vendor at the lunch is “Rhode Island’s pay-to-play political culture.”

“No wonder businesses stay away from Rhode Island,” he said. “McKee is one of the faces atop Rhode Island’s unethical political establishment. He needs to be held accountable.”

McKee said Wednesday that these are “political events, and this is no different. They are using an ethics commission to get a headline in local papers to cause problems that don’t exist.”

Last week, McKee’s campaign responded to the criticism, saying if he knew Scout, the preferred vendor to revitalize the vacant Cranston Street Armory, was going to be at the lunch, he would’ve brought a policy person.