The news broken by Capitol Hill-based news publication Roll Call that the Office of Congressional Ethics completed a second investigation of Rep. Alex Mooney in December and turned that report over to the House Ethics Committee is not the news you want to have break with 30 days until primary election day.
It was bad enough when the House Ethics Committee announced in February that it would wait to announce any action on the OCE Mooney report until later in May after the May 10 primary. If they decided it was a nothingburger, it would be nice to know before voters go to the polls. And if they find there is enough there, it would be nice for voters to have that information going into the booth.
I’ve had people hint to me that something else was going on beyond the original campaign finance violations of using donations for personal food, trips and even Mooney’s car. But unless someone is willing to talk or provide documents and information, it would be like making someone prove they don’t beat their spouse.
Alas, I didn’t get those documents. Roll Call did, and those documents lay out some of the scope of the second OCE investigation, which is looking into allegations Mooney used congressional and campaign staff for personal errands for his family and also allegedly tried to alter the congressman’s calendar to hide entries from investigators.
Again, since we don’t have the second OCE report, which was sent to the House Ethics Committee in December, the probe letters sent to various people who are, or were, in Mooney’s orbit are not indicative of anything and, of course, one is innocent until proven guilty. But someone told me that they smelled some similarities between this investigation and the Bob Ney scandal in the mid-2000s. Only time will tell.
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Later today, I expect that the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the West Virginia Manufacturers Association will officially endorse Rep. David McKinley over Mooney for the new 2nd Congressional District Republican primary.
The chamber has already been in McKinley’s corner, more or less. The chamber commissioned two polls, including the one released a few weeks ago showing McKinley in a slight lead among a five-person race including Mooney, as well as leading Mooney in a head-to-head matchup.
Also last week, a source at the chamber told me they, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, were doing a six-figure ad buy on behalf of McKinley. The TV ads thank McKinley for supporting domestic oil and natural gas production and drilling on federal lands. They don’t specifically have anything to do with the campaign, but it does get McKinley’s face into homes without a negative message tied to it.
There really hasn’t been a lot in the way of endorsements. Sure, Mooney was endorsed by former president Donald Trump and McKinley was endorsed by Gov. Jim Justice, both of whom remain popular in the state. Mooney was endorsed by the conservative Club for Growth and the Gun Owners of America. McKinley has the presumed backing of the West Virginia Contractors Association, who gave McKinley an award last month and thanked him for his vote on the $1.2 trillion hard infrastructure bill.
I expect we’ll see more endorsements roll out starting this week.
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Also be on the lookout later this week for federal campaign finance reports for the first quarter of 2022. If you recall, McKinley had $1.6 million as of the last report with fundraising and personal loans picking up. Mooney had $2.3 million, but McKinley was out-raising him.
According to numbers from within the McKinley campaign, they raised more than $466,000 between January and March and have $1.03 million in cash-on-hand. It will be curious to see how Mooney’s fundraising has gone, considering he only raised more than $189,000 during the last reporting period compared to McKinley’s more than $598,000 during the same period.
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Beginning Friday, April 29, I will be producing “Mountain State Views,” a weekly podcast. The show will feature 45-minute interviews with lawmakers, newsmakers, politicos, journalists, lobbyists, think tank wonks and people I find interesting.
I made an attempt at a weekly podcast two years ago with “State of the State,” which followed a similar format. That began in 2020 with the start of the legislative session and it was going just fine until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in West Virginia. I became stuck in the daily COVID-19 briefings with Gov. Justice and I simply became too busy to really do a weekly podcast with any justice.
But I’m going to give it another go. There’s no fancy multi-camera video setup, no expensive third-party media producers and no company bigwigs. Just me, a couple of microphones, an audio mixer and a guest.
As of now, you can subscribe to Mountain State Views on Apple Podcasts with the show being available on other podcast platforms soon. I even recorded a brief show to introduce myself.
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I’m heading on vacation Wednesday and I’ll be back to work Thursday, April 21. I’m taking a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico, with my wife and mother-in-law. It’s a cruise we were supposed to go on in the spring of 2020. Let’s hope the next plague holds off until after we return.
Stephen Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com
