A follow up on a story we brought you last week on this very issue.  This definitely beginning to look like a problem for West Virginia.  Even the slightest appearance of pay to play is troublesome for a state’s chief law enforcement officer – but an actual paper trail with donors receiving hefty fees that are a part of a settlement intended to compensate tax payers is just wrong.  There’s a certain arrogance of power about this story – at some point West Virginia’s Democrat A.G. needs to recognize that having always done things a certain way doesn’t necessarily make them right.  The person who all of is good for is Republican A.G. candidate Dan Greear.  From LegalNewsLine:

Campaign contributors given state contracts by West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw will try to stake their claims to portions of nearly $4 million in fees in August.

On Aug. 20, attorneys for four firms involved with a settlement between the State and Visa and MasterCard will argue for $3.9 million in fees at a final approval hearing in Ohio County Circuit Court. Members of two of those firms are contributors to McGraw, seeking re-election this year.

“(T)he settlement agreements provide that Visa shall pay up to $3,000,000 and MasterCard up to $900,000 for the State of West Virginia’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs arising from the work involved in filing and pursuing this lawsuit and in bringing this settlement about, in an amount to be approved and awarded by the Court,” a notice on McGraw’s website says.

“Those payments shall be made to an account designated by the Special Attorneys General that assisted the Attorney General or as otherwise ordered by the Court. Those payments are in addition to the other payments described above and shall not affect the payments for the sales tax holidays or the payments to the State’s Attorney General Consumer Protection Fund.”

Read the Rest…