Six Degrees of Alan Mollohan
Roll Call Staff
A Web site that chronicles veterans’ hunting events includes photos of West Virginia hunts in November 2005 and November 2006, indicating that Mollohan and West attended both hunts. The 2005 page includes the following acknowledgement: “A tremendous thank you to everyone that played a part in this great hunt and a special thanks to Dale McBride and General Randy West for the use of Dale’s farm and all of the organization that went into this great hunt.”
McBride is a lifelong friend of Mollohan’s, a board member of the Mollohan Family Foundation and the president of FMW Composite Systems, a lobbying client of Robison International. McBride has said that he got the idea for one of his companies’ military contracts — a rubber bladder fuel-storage system — from a luncheon with then-Marine Col. Randy West.
McBride is listed as an officer in a handful of West Virginia companies, including M&M Partners, a partnership with Mollohan through which the two bought a 297-acre West Virginia farm in 2005.
The Mollohan foundation announced in its winter 2006 newsletter that it is accepting donations for “the General Randall Lee West and Robin Lane West Emergency Fund for Severely Wounded West Virginia Veterans.” The fund appears to be a project of the Mollohan foundation — neither the state of West Virginia nor the Internal Revenue Service has any record of an independent nonprofit organization by that name.
In March 2007, West and McBride registered a for-profit LLC in West Virginia called Patriot II Partners. In his letter to Roll Call, West said the company was established “to purchase a vacant building in a stalled industrial park” in Preston County, W.Va., which is also in Mollohan’s district. “The building was purchased with personal funds/financing and there were no plus ups, adds or government funds of any kind involved in that purchase,” West wrote.
West wrote that he is aware of representing only one company with an office in the Mollohan building, and said he assumed that the building was named for the Congressman because “the people that work there ... think of him as an honorable and honest man who does his best to help keep our country strong and free and to represent the people of the First District of WV. From what I know of him, I would echo their thoughts.”
In a conversation about another story last fall, West told Roll Call that he had lobbied Mollohan on behalf of West Virginia clients.
“If you are asking whether or not we have ever lobbied for people with Mr. Mollohan — yes,” West said at the time. “We have West Virginia clients and we have approached at least two of the West Virginia Representatives and West Virginia Senators.” But West said there was no connection between the company’s lobbying activities and his relationship with Mollohan.
“I don’t believe that anything immoral, illegal or unethical has been done by anybody at Robison,” he said.
In his letter, West added that “the media has the plus up story all wrong ... [and] the way you write about it hurts good people trying to do good things that our nation really needs!”
Schumer Advocates for Many on Panel
Nov. 16, 12 a.m.
As Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson once said of the Joint Economic Committee, “It’s as useless as tits on a bull.” But as that panel’s chairman during the 110th Congress, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) seized the opportunity to elevate the traditionally low-profile post to the forefront of shaping policy. Read Full Article
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