The Governor’s office and the WV Attorney General’s Office claims that the State Republican Party Executive Committee had to be involved in the selection process for the candidates submitted to the Governor for the vacancy created by the resignation of Derrick Evans. They told the Wayne County Republican Party Chair that he did it wrong; that they had to re-do the process and re-submit the candidates, which culminated in a new name being added to the list of three choices. As you know, if you’ve watched West Virginia media this week, the Governor chose the new candidate added to the second list.

Was there really a problem with the first letter submitted to the Governor? Here is the letter sent to the Governor from the Wayne County Chair, which was alleged to have mistakenly left out the State party:

This first letter was marked as received by the Governor’s office on January 14, 2021. I wonder why the Governor couldn’t make a choice from this list? Take a look at another letter submitted to him in the past from a county party chair. The Governor chose from this list, submitted to him from Wood County, back in October of 2018. It looks pretty similar:

This list was sent in by the Wood County Republican Executive Committee, following the death of Delegate Frank Deem, who had passed away on October 10, 2018. The news media reported the fact that the COUNTY chose the list of 3 qualified replacements from which the Governor would be choosing. There was no mention of the state party, or the state chair.

Did the Governor send this 2018 list back for alterations, revisions, or additions? No. He made a choice and he seemed happy with it. I guess he liked one of the options in Wood County’s list, as opposed to Wayne County’s list. What does Wayne County know? They’re probably a bunch of hayseeds…..

The Governor’s office said that the State Republican Party executive committee was responsible for directing the process of choosing the candidates (even though they apparently weren’t involved in the 2018 appointment). This was according to the party’s Acting Chair, Roman Stauffer – a lobbyist and former campaign manager for Governor Justice (just several months ago).

Look at what I found, however….. Mr. Stauffer was, at one time, the chair of the Mercer County Republican Executive Committee. During his time serving in that capacity, guess what happened? A vacancy opened up in his county and he was required to come up with three qualified candidates for the Governor to choose a replacement. It looks like Mr. Stauffer followed the exact same process that ended up being wrong now in 2021:

In fact, he appears to have handled the vacancy in the exact same way as Wayne County did with Derrick Evans’ seat. The only difference being: politics.

Update: the Governor’s Chief of Staff and General Counsel was the radio today lying about the conversation he had with me, and also making other false statements. Apparently he struggles wit the truth: