Former Secretary of State candidate Ken Reed is asking that elections office to investigate parallels between political contributions to boost the campaign of primary election winner Kris Warner and state loans that were approved under Warner’s oversight in his current role at the state Economic Development Authority.

Reed, a Republican from Morgan County, filed an official complaint this week with the Secretary of State’s Office, which oversees elections in West Virginia. The current Secretary of State is Mac Warner, brother of Kris.

Kris Warner, in a statement distributed to West Virginia reporters, denied any wrongdoing.

This has developed following the resignation of Mark Scott, the administration secretary in the executive branch, who in recent months also served as chairman of a federally-registered political action committee called Conservative Policy Action. Most of the funds and efforts with Conservative Policy Action went to support Kris Warner’s campaign for Secretary of State.

Following questions about Scott’s dual role, Reed was motivated to push for more answers about the financial activities of the political action committee.

“I suspect there was collusion between Mr. Scott and Mr. Warner throughout the campaign along with potential unethical dealings with state contracts,” Reed wrote in his complaint.

“I believe there should be a state investigation into the connection between Mr. Scott and Mr. Warner and Mr. Warner and the state EDA since Mr. Warner did not resign from his position to run for state office. There is massive conflict of interest going on since both Mr. Scott and Mr. Warner worked for the state with power over multiple contracts while soliciting funds.”

The Secretary of State position is opening because Mac Warner, who held it for two terms, ran for governor but did not win the primary. The Republican primary for Secretary of State concluded with Warner receiving 92,911 votes, former Delegate Doug Skaff receiving 42,515 votes, former Delegate Reed with 34,101 and Putnam County Clerk Brian Wood with 33,083. The Democratic candidate for the office is lawyer Thornton Cooper.

Kris Warner maintained his role executive director of the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, a position that Gov. Jim Justice appointed him to three years ago. He is also a former chairman of the state Republican Party.

In a response emailed to reporters today Warner said, “I am extremely proud of the work the entire WVEDA team has accomplished, from the Chairman to our volunteer Board of Directors and our highly efficient 13 member staff. We have helped create literally hundreds and hundreds of new careers for West Virginians working with private enterprise and have helped save well in excess of one thousand existing jobs in the Mountain State.

“I am not aware nor have I spoken with Ken Reed or the Secretary of States Office about any complaint.”

Conservative Policy Action started raising funds in late 2023 and built up more than $327,000. Almost all of that money, its federal filings show, went to supporting Warner or opposing Skaff, who switched parties after leading Democrats in the state House of Delegates.

The first few contributions to the PAC were:

• $50,000 from Aumon Corp, a California-based company with Randall Arthur Smith as founder and chief operating officer. Smith is also chief financial officer of Omnis Technologies, another California-based company that is behind several West Virginia projects including a coal-to-hydrogen power project at the Pleasants Power Plant.
• $50,000 from BC Holding, which is associated with former state Senate President Bill Cole, a Bluefield resident who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2016. Cole is a partner with the Omnis efforts, which include the Pleasants Power project along with a housing project in Bluefield described as revolutionary.  Omnis Sublimation Recovery Technologies is spearheading a project to extract rare earth elements from coal impoundments in Wyoming County.
• $50,000 from Safeco Services Corp., a demolition and asbestos abatement company with roots in Morgantown and operations in Pennsylvania.

The state Economic Development Authority, under Kris Warner’s oversight, was interconnected with financial support for each of those.

Last Nov. 9, the state Economic Development Authority awarded Quantum Pleasants — owned by Omnis Technologies — a low-interest $50 million loan to expand and retrofit the plant for hydrogen production. Altogether, that’s a project estimated to cost $600 million.

Several times over the past few years, the state EDA has passed a resolution allowing Safeco to continue environmental remediation work at the former Century Aluminum plant property in Ravenswood. The full cost of remediation was expected to be about $17 million.

“There’s no quid pro quo here. There wasn’t a pay to play in any situation,” said Cole, when reached by telephone today.

He added, “I think it’s a real stretch to try to connect those dots.”

Cole said he goes way back with Kris Warner, recalling their successful efforts to flip the West Virginia Senate Republican a decade ago. He said Warner tirelessly recruited candidates assuring each ballot would include a Republican option at a time when Democrats still dominated the state’s political scene.

Cole said his contribution to Conservative Policy Action represents only a small percentage of the money he has put toward political activity this cycle. He said he donated to the PAC through an organization bearing his own initials because he was not worried about the contribution being traced to him; he pointed out that political donors have options that are far harder to be identified.

“I just want my state to be a better place,” Cole said. “The loans so predated money that went to a superpac– to connect those dots, it’s somebody that’s mad because they lost the election.”

Matthew Parker, a Weirton native who is executive director of Conservative Policy Action, responded for this story that “Bill Cole is a conservative hero who has always been at the forefront of funding conservative causes to help West Virginia move beyond the dark years when it was held captive by liberal special interests. These contributions were used to support freedom-loving conservative patriots like Kris Warner and expose Doug Skaff, a liberal Democrat, who registered Republican in a cynical attempt to dupe West Virginians.”

Warner referred any questions about what the PAC was doing to Parker, saying “I have kept an arm’s length distance from them as required by law.”

Warner followed up that email a few hours later with another one pointing toward exact numbers of jobs retained and created since he started with the West Virginia Economic Development Authority. The created jobs were 2,351, he said. The retained jobs were 1,393.

He signed off by saying, “Thank you for providing me a reason to reflect and check on our progress over the last 3 years.”