— A wealthy North Carolina investor called on a federal judge Wednesday to dismiss bribery charges against him, arguing that his asking the state insurance commissioner to hire his own company vice president to oversee his businesses wasn't enough to justify the charges.

Greg Lindberg is accused of funneling some $250,000 through the North Carolina Republican Party to get around donation limits and fund Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey's re-election. But Causey was working with the FBI, and Lindberg, two of his associates and former state GOP Chairman Robin Hayes were arrested earlier this year.

Lindberg has filed for dismissal of the charges, pointing to federal court decisions that make it harder to prove bribery cases. That includes the case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and produced a unanimous decision in 2016 that shrank the definition an "official act" federal bribery charges can turn on.

The Lindberg indictment says the Durham businessman was unhappy with the way Causey's department regulated his companies and that he asked the commissioner to assign someone else as a point person. He suggested John Palermo, then vice president at one of Lindberg's main companies, and now a co-defendant in the case.

Lindberg's legal team acknowledged all of this in their motion for dismissal, but argued it's not enough to prove bribery.

"A staffing change is not an official act within the meaning of McDonnell’s first step," the motion states.

In the McDonnell case, Virginia's former governor was accused of accepting loans and gifts to help promote a now-discontinued nutritional supplement derived from tobacco plants. One of the things McDonnell did was arrange a meeting for the supplement's creator with other state government officials.

If picking the right official on an issue and setting up a meeting isn't an "official act," then neither is asking that a particular official not oversee someone's companies, Lindberg's filing argues.

"Mr. Lindberg sought less than what was asked for in McDonnell – that anyone other than a particular official be given the authority to take official action on future matters," it states.

Lindberg's attorneys also accuse Causey of pushing the alleged bribery scheme forward, and they say the deputy Lindberg tried to remove, Jackie Obusek, treated his companies unfairly.

"The evidence at trial will show that Mr. Lindberg was concerned with ensuring that any donation was compliant with the laws and regulations governing campaign contributions, and that Mr. Lindberg in fact rejected Mr. Causey’s request that funds be deposited into Mr. Causey’s personal account," the motion states.

"As just one example, Mr. Lindberg told the Commissioner: 'We are not asking you for anything special. In fact, we are willing to submit ourselves to tighter standards than the law allows,'" the filing states. "Mr. Lindberg sought fairness, not favoritism. ... [H]e simply sought a fair and reasonable regulatory examination by a competent and neutral decision-maker."

Causey said Thursday that he didn't want to comment on the filing, other than to say "the comments he made about me are just not correct."

Causey's administration was reviewing the way Lindberg's insurance businesses invested their money and apparently took a harder line than former Commissioner Wayne Goodwin's team. Lindberg supported Goodwin's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2016, and his attorneys argue that Causey's crackdown was "seemingly motivated by political animus."

The Wall Street Journal published an expose earlier this year into the way Lindberg's insurance businesses invested their cash in other businesses he owned, and the newspaper gave at least one example where Lindberg moved a company to North Carolina to take advantage of the state's regulatory structure under Goodwin's watch.

Goodwin, who later did consulting work for Lindberg, has said repeatedly he did nothing wrong. He has not been charged in the case.

Goodwin is now chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and Lindberg has been one of the party's larger donors in recent years. He's also Lt. Gov. Dan Forest's largest donor, giving some $2.4 million to a pair of political committees backing Forest's 2020 campaign for governor.

None of the North Carolina politicians and political groups who've gotten major donations from Lindberg returned them after the indictment, other than Causey, who forwarded the donation routed through the state GOP to the U.S. Marshals Service as evidence.

Lindberg argues in his motion that he was "exercising his right to engage in political speech" and says a conviction could have a chilling effect on the political process.

That's an argument that was also made in the McDonnell case. Lindberg's attorneys give two main examples: Ambassadorships that often go to major presidential campaign donors and the donations Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was reportedly promised during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh if she'd vote one way or the other.

"Under the government’s theory, each one of these donors – and even the President of the United States – would be exposed to criminal liability based on the correlation between their donations and appointments."

Lindberg changed legal teams earlier this month, with former U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins stepping away and attorneys from Katten Muchin Rosenman taking over. The firm is based in Chicago but has offices around the country, including in Charlotte.

In her motion to withdraw, Tompkins said the firm has been consulting with Lindberg and her since early 2019.

The three other defendants in this case, Hayes, Palermo and Lindberg consultant John Gray, have not yet filed for dismissal. Requests for dismissal are common ahead of trial, and this case is tentatively slated for trial in November in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.

The U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuting the case has not commented on its details, but Lindberg's motion notes that they oppose dismissal.