Gov. Sanford to repay South Carolina for Argentina trip

The Legislature will not be back in session until January, but Knotts had called a closed-door meeting of close friends to discuss L'Affaire Sanford. Beforehand, he showed a stack of printed e-mails from voters that called for the governor to step aside or face impeachment. "They're burning me up about how this guy should resign," Knotts said. "They're telling me this guy has completely lost their confidence."

Knotts, a former policeman with a big belly and bigger voice, hails from Lexington County, an increasingly suburban swath of rural South Carolina. He didn't say he wanted Sanford to step down, but he did level a number of blunt criticisms. Sitting behind a huge Confederate battle flag -- a symbol whose presence at the state Capitol triggered an ongoing boycott by the NAACP -- Knotts said he worried about Sanford's ability to attract new business to the state, given the new national notoriety.

"Is this the man to convince a large industry to come to South Carolina?" he asked.

Knotts said he had serious problems with the way Sanford reportedly disappeared without contacting other government officials. And he said he wanted to determine whether Sanford had used any government funds in his amorous voyages overseas. "We need to determine if any criminal acts of fraud or anything like that occurred on these trips to Argentina," Knotts said.

Sanford has said he has made three trips to see his lover, who is divorced. The governor paid for the most recent trip with his own funds, spokesman Joel Sawyer said. He said he knew very little about the trip before that one.

But the first trip, Sawyer said, was a June 2008 trade mission to Brazil and Argentina, paid for with state tax dollars. On Thursday, in response to queries from The Times and other news outlets, the state Commerce Department released details of that weeklong trip, including the $9,000-plus bill paid by state taxpayers.

Commerce officials said that after visiting Brazil, Sanford and a department employee peeled away for a visit to Buenos Aires, reportedly for some "official state meetings."

Sanford volunteered to repay the state for the Argentine leg of the first trip. The larger trade mission produced an agreement with Brazilian company Fitesa to build a $120-million fabric plant in Laurens County, S.C., the governor's spokesman said.

Marvin Moss, head of the county development corporation, said in an interview that the project had been delayed by financing problems.