Call it a case of mistaken prosecution. West Virginia State Senator Oshel Craigo (D-WV) went down to defeat in 2002 after Republicans (drawing on tight ties to the state’s U.S. attorney) spread the word that he was under federal investigation. But it’s a funny thing: Craigo was never actually prosecuted. And now his successor Lisa Smith (R), who rose to victory on the news of Craigo’s legal troubles, is headed to jail for the same crime.
Smith acknowledged in her plea that she and her husband committed tax fraud by not paying the IRS employment taxes generated by their in-home health care companies. But, more interesting to Local Muck fans (both of them), Smith has also admitted that she intentionally created and submitted a false campaign finance statement during her 2002 state senate bid. Smith made up records that $15,000 had been contributed to her campaign by friends and family; the money actually came from her own pocket. Ironically, it was allegations of campaign finance fraud that helped Smith win office back in 2002.
Smith began her political career in 2000 when she was elected to the West Virginia state house. In 2002, she challenged Democratic incumbent Oshel Craigo for his state senate seat, in what became the most expensive race of the season.
Only a few weeks before a tight general election, the local Republican committee sent around press releases claiming that Craigo was under federal investigation for falsely filing a campaign finance report. The press ran with the story, and Craigo lost the race. He blamed the press stories for his loss, and he wasnât the only one. Gary Abernath, former state Republican Party executive director, said in 2005 that, âthe investigation itself never did seem to yield any results, but the publicizing of it no doubt led to Craigo’s defeat.”
Abernathy would know; he played a key role in pushing the story to the media. But who gave him the the tip on the investigation? Abernanthy got the lead from Kris Warner, then chairman of the West Virginia Republican Committee. If the Warner name sounds familiar, it might be because his brother Kasey Warner was a U.S. Attorney who was a brief tangent in this yearâs firing scandal.* The Warners are third generation West Virginia Republicans; their brother got in trouble in 2004 for printing “Bush/Warner” signs without the President’s permission.
So the local U.S. Attorney executed an investigation weeks before a close race. Meanwhile, his brother somehow informs the local Republican party of the investigation, and the scandal makes front page news right before election day. Abernathy didn’t miss the connection in an interview with the State Journal:
“Kris told me he thought the information was legitimate, and we did a series of press releases on the subject, which became a big media story,” Abernathy writes. “Of course, the fact that Kris’ brother, Kasey, was the U.S. attorney whose office was doing the investigation brought howls of protest from the Democrats suggesting that Kasey was tipping off Kris for political purposes.
I never witnessed any such communication between the brothers, but I also knew well who my chairman’s brother was,” he continues. “If Kris told me a tip seemed legitimate, I couldn’t deny feeling safer about doing a press release on the subject.”
Indeed.
Despite the win, Smith didnât last long in office. She resigned her position after only two years, ostensibly for reasons of mental illness. Her indictment came quite soon after (she was briefly declared mentally unfit for trial, and was assigned court-ordered therapy). And irrespective of the imbroglio that surrounded the state senate election, a new local U.S. attorney has found a charge of mail fraud that sticks. Smith and her husband are set for sentencing in November, where they are expected to receive five years in prison.
*Kasey Warner was mentioned as a possible tenth fired U.S. attorney after claiming publicly that he had been run out of office without good reason. However, Steven Benen noted on TPM that Warner was one of the few attorneys who appeared on firing lists compiled both by Kyle Sampson and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. The Next Hurrah, after comparing Warnerâs own statements of his firing with testimony given by Comey, has suggested that Warner might even have been one of two attorneys that Comey fired while still at the Justice Department.
