Attorney General Henry McMaster testified for more than three hours today in the trial of the man his office is prosecuting in the Carolina Investors scandal.

Former chairman Earle Morris' defense team wanted to know why bureaucrats in the securities division of the AG's office didn't intervene before the Pickens firm shut its doors in March 2003, leaving thousands of people without their life savings.

McMaster said they needed evidence that fraud was about to be committed or that a crime had already been carried out.

"They didn't know the whole story," he told jurors. "They couldn't have."

McMaster blamed Morris and other executives for either misleading the office, which was led by Attorney General Charlie Condon until January 2003, or not being more forthcoming in providing the full picture of the financial situation at Carolina Investors and parent company HomeGold.

But the defense told jurors that Morris was relying on the same information as state regulators and suggested he shouldn't be blamed for allegedly being hoodwinked, too.

Before McMaster took the stand, Judge James Johnson ruled that the defense could only question him on his role as the state's securities commissioner, leaving out his former role as head of the South Carolina Republican Party.

Former Lt. Governor Morris is a Democrat who's tried to blame his charges, in part, on politics.