South Carolina mulls mystery $1.8bn in account: ‘We don’t know why it’s there’

Governor says officials don’t know how or when money materialised in state coffers, what it’s for, or if it’s even real

To put it mildly, the South Carolina state government faces an unusual problem: what to do about $1.8bn found in a state bank account when no one knows how it got there, how it should be spent or even whether it really exists.

Discussing the problem, the Republican governor, Henry McMaster, made a play for political understatement of the year.