The website is PatrickMorriseyIsCorrupt.com, and the Democratic challenger’s campaign unveiled it Sept. 29. It counters a site created by the Republican Attorneys General Association critical of Reynolds found at DougEndorsedCrookedHillary.com.
Reynolds campaign spokeswoman Lynette Maselli says the new website contains information about how Patrick Morrisey is lining his family’s pockets with drug money as our children continue to die in record numbers.
Morrisey’s campaign dismissed the website as “nonsense.”
“Morrisey contends he’s fighting the drug epidemic, but he’s actually lining his pockets with millions of dollars from the same companies that are flooding West Virginia with addictive pain pills,” Maselli said in a statement. “The website also reveals what Patrick Morrisey is trying hard to hide: that drug companies and his D.C. friends have spent $2.6 million to flood the airwaves with lies in an attempt to buy this election.”
She went on to call Morrisey “an embarrassment to our state.”
“As West Virginians become more informed about the corrupt Attorney General, they know it’s time for him to go,” she said. “Morrisey is a dishonest pharmaceutical lobbyist who used your hard earned tax dollars to pay for political consultants and shameless self-promotional videos.
“He continues to shield the same pharmaceutical companies who flooded West Virginia with addictive pain pills by allowing them to settle for pennies on the dollar, and he’s hoping West Virginians won’t remember the facts that prove he is unfit to be Attorney General.”
Maselli said that’s why Reynolds’ campaign created the website.
“West Virginia deserves an Attorney General who will hold big drug companies accountable, not someone who is lining his pockets and trying to advance his own political career,” she said.
Kayla Berube, spokeswoman for Morrisey’s campaign, dismissed Reynolds as a candidate and his campaign’s website.
“While liberal Doug Reynolds continues to spend his inherited family fortune on a desperate smear campaign against the Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey continues to fight for West Virginia,” she told The West Virginia Record. “Thursday, as Reynolds’ expensive political consultants rolled out a nonsense website aimed at reiterating their campaign lies, Attorney General Morrisey’s first-ever partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s office yielded yet another conviction of a drug dealer.”
Berube said Reynolds “has lost all credibility and is not a serious candidate.”
“Not only is he wholly unqualified to be Attorney General, having barely even practiced law in the last five years, but he is wrong on the issues that matter most to the voters of West Virginia,” she said. “He supports lighter sentences for repeat offender drug dealers, and has defended crack dealers in court.
“Reynolds voted in favor of cap and trade and has long been one of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s biggest supporters in West Virginia, contributing thousands of dollars to their campaigns.”
Berube questioned Reynolds’ ethical decisions.
“Reynolds has demonstrated a troubling lack of judgment by lining his pockets with tens of millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded state contracts, while failing to disclose certain information to the public, as required by state ethics laws,” she said. “Reynolds and his family’s businesses have earned over $50 million during the time he’s served in the state Legislature and Doug Reynolds has never once disclosed this apparent conflict of interest to the public.
“If Doug Reynolds wants to accuse anyone of corruption, he should take a long, hard look in the mirror. Liberal Reynolds’ record is the epitome of the friends and family plan that the Attorney General has worked to dismantle since the day he took office in 2013.”
