NY Governor, ex-girlfriend travelled for Hillary campaign

New york Governor David A Paterson travelled with an alleged ex-girlfriend while campaigning for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential bid in Iowa and South Carolina in recent months, with Paterson aides saying she helped him with his visual limitations.

The trips, in November and January respectively, were paid for by the Clinton campaign, officials said. Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield said the woman who has been identified as the governor’s ex-girlfriend, Lila Kirton, helped Paterson during these two campaign trips with his sight. Paterson is legally blind. Kirton, who is director of community affairs for the governor’s office, also was involved with Women With Hillary and travelled on her own personal time, not as part of her state job, he said. Earlier this month, Paterson publicly acknowledged that he and his wife had had affairs beginning about nine years ago while they were going through a “rough patch” in their 15-year marriage. He said their affairs ended several years ago after he and his wife decided to recommit to their marriage.

Administration officials said they saw no impropriety in Kirton traveling with Paterson. “The governor has made it clear that his extramarital affairs ended several years ago, well before these campaign trips,” Cockfield said.

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Administration officials were responding to an article in the Times Union in Albany on Tuesday that erroneously said that Paterson and Kirton travelled to South Carolina in October to campaign for Hillary Clinton using state money.

A review of their state credit-card records shows, however, that both Paterson and Kirton went to the city of Carolina, Puerto Rico, in November. Cockfield said they were both there separately to attend Somos El Futuro, a Puerto Rican and Hispanic legislative conference, which also attracts many of the state’s elected staff.

Times Union managing editor Mary Fran Gleason said the article would be corrected in Wednesday’s paper, and that the closeness of the trips to Puerto Rico and South Carolina caused “confusion”.