How the WVGOP picked ousted veterans hospital chief as its top leader

Gov. Jim Justice

Gov. Jim Justice met Dr. Mark Harris for the first time Friday.

The governor came out of a meeting with a decision to back Harris as the new chairman of West Virginia’s most powerful political party and only later found out that Harris had been ousted at a West Virginia veterans hospital when a doctor he supervised was accused of the sexual abuse of dozens of veterans seeking healthcare.

The governor’s top adviser indicated not enough was known about Harris’s role at the hospital during those events to consider it disqualifying.

“We as a governor’s office don’t know what the inner workings were, who did what. I don’t think that’s been publicly disclosed. As far as I know it’s unsubstantiated and unproven,” said Brian Abraham, chief of staff for the Justice administration. “It’s not our place to answer for that.”

A Google search could have prompted more questions about Harris’s dismissal two years ago from the VA Medical Center.

Yet with the governor’s support, Harris was narrowly elected Saturday as the new chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party. He began the duty immediately and was busy today with a series of meetings about the role responsible for organization, fundraising and outreach to the public.

He’ll be a new face for the party that now dominates West Virginia politics. Republicans took the lead in voter registration over Democrats last month for the first time since 1932. Last year, Republicans won the governor’s race, the other executive offices and supermajorities in the state Legislature.

Mark Harris

“We really believe we have the right ideas and the right people and that this is the right time for Republicans in West Virginia,” Harris said over the telephone today while heading home to Beckley.

But as he assumes the statewide leadership role, a cloud of questions now hangs over his work history.

Harris was appointed chief of staff at the Beckley VA Hospital in 2017 and was responsible for clinical operations there and and at community clinics in Greenbrier and Mercer counties.

Dr. Jonathan Yates, now serving 25 years in federal prison, started work at the hospital in April 2018.

In September 2019, an investigation opened into the sexual abuse of multiple veterans who had sought medical treatment at the hospital.

In November 2019, Harris was dismissed during the investigation.

“There are times in every organization when new leadership is needed. This is one of those times, and we are confident that as William Carson assumes the duties of Beckley VAMC acting chief of staff, he will provide consistency and strong leadership until a permanent chief of staff is named. We thank Dr. Harris for his service, and wish him all the best in the future,” said the hospital’s public affairs officer in a statement.

In April, 2020, Yates was charged and arrested for his actions taking advantage of seven of those veterans.

Asked about that series of events — and whether it should reflect on his leadership of the party — Harris today defended his role there

“What happened at Beckley VA was a tragedy. Everything was done by the book and I’m just thankful justice prevailed,” he said. “We did everything by the book, 100 percent in accordance with the VA’s policies and procedures.”

He said the events at the hospital should not reflect on his ability as party chairman.

“I don’t think so. If I thought so, I probably wouldn’t have run.”

Shelley Moore Capito

When the VA investigation was first revealed, West Virginia’s top Republican, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, described the events there as a preventable tragedy.

“Our veterans need to feel safe and cared for at our VA hospitals. No one should live in fear of being attacked or feel as though they are unsafe—especially in this way and in a place like one of our VA facilities,” Capito stated then.

“I am horrified and disgusted by the news coming out of the Beckley VA. This should have never happened in the first place, and I am committed to making sure this is fully investigated.”

Capito hasn’t yet publicly congratulated Harris, and her office hasn’t yet responded with comment for news coverage.

Former U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart, a former state GOP chairman, did offer his congratulations though. He did not mention his office’s prosecution at the VA hospital and hasn’t publicly addressed any incongruity.

Hospital management’s failed oversight of Yates is the subject of more than 40 civil claims, each representing a veteran, with plaintiffs alleging the hospital’s leaders should have done more to protect patients. They’ve been consolidated into one case in federal court.

Stephen New

“Because numerous patients made Dr. Yates’ conduct known to other members of the Beckley VAMC medical staff,” the lawsuits state, “this constituted ‘a harmful or potentially harmful adverse event which was not an isolated case but rather a systems issue affecting multiple patients.’”

The Beckley lawyer representing the veterans, Stephen New, says there will be more than 60 claims when all is said and done.

New today said the governor’s office should have been more cautious about throwing support behind Harris.

“The allegations were not unproven nor unsubstantiated.  The inspector general for the VA came in and did a full blown investigation resulting in the dismissal of the head of the Beckley VAMC Stacey Vasquez and Harris.  Harris supervised Yates.  The first complaints went to the VA management in Sept 2018, about 3 months after he arrived in Beckley.  There had been identical allegations against Yates at Bluefield just before he came to the VA,” New said.

“If the Republicans are OK with Harris as the person who leads their party, that’s completely fine. He was dismissed from the VA as was the director of the Beckley VAMC because of their failure to investigate Yates once complaints arose.”

GOP chairman candidates

This situation came to a head when a variety of political personalities came crashing together this past weekend in the race for GOP chairman.

The role opened after the sudden January resignation of Melody Potter, who cited the need to take care of her aging parents. Potter’s unexpired term lasts until July 2022.

Roman Stauffer

Roman Stauffer, who had served as campaign manager for Justice’s re-election, was the interim chairman and made clear he would like the role on an ongoing basis.

“I am the best person to guide our Party to transition into this next chapter,” Stauffer wrote in a Jan. 22 announcement of his candidacy.

Conrad Lucas

Another candidate for chairman was Conrad Lucas, who had the role previously. A likely sticking point for Justice was that Lucas ran the primary election campaign of former Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher against the incumbent governor. And back when Lucas ran the party apparatus and Justice ran for governor as a Democrat, the GOP social media was pretty incendiary.

Briefly in the race as a wild card was Rob Cornelius, who was forced out a couple of years ago as chairman of the Wood County Republican executive committee. Cornelius was stopped at the party convention check-in on Saturday and made to turn around. He went home.

The vote among those candidates was set for this past Saturday in Charleston.

The day before that, Justice met with Stauffer and Harris. Lucas got no invitation.

“The governor met with Roman Stauffer and Dr. Harris on Friday morning to discuss who could best lead the party, to unify the party,” Abraham said today. “At that time Roman believed he would not have the votes sufficient to win the thing outright.

“The two of them made the decision – Roman and Dr. Harris made the decision — that Dr. Harris should be the candidate to challenge. It was in the presence of the governor, who endorsed the idea. The meeting was for those two to resolve their way forward.”

Stauffer acknowledged that summit in a tweet: “We had a great meeting on Friday to discuss the importance of our Party leadership and moving forward.”

Justice was satisfied he was backing the guy with the right view of the party’s future, Abraham said.

“He believed based on what Dr. Harris said was his vision for the Republican Party trying to bring people together and unify everybody and build the party.”

That was just the start of the twists and turns.

Not everybody was unified.

Friday afternoon

There was still no guarantee Harris, even backed by the two-term chief executive, would win.

Harris is relatively new to West Virginia and to party politics.

He got involved with the Raleigh County GOP in 2018 and was elected chairman in 2019. He was named “county chair of the month” last March in a post where the party described him as “a health care executive and a Christian minister. Dr. Harris enjoy a wide variety of activities and is a senior flight instructor, expert in world religions and cultures, and an instructor in Tae Kwon Do.”

By late August of last year, Raleigh County went from having a majority of registered Democratic voters, to a majority of registered Republican voters.

Ben Anderson

“I felt Mark Harris was the grassroots candidate,” said Ben Anderson, the GOP chairman in neighboring Greenbrier County. “I think that’s one of the major reasons that propelled him to victory.”

But familiarity remained an issue, and Lucas is still popular among a fairly large number of party activists.

There’s a fairly high degree of overlap between the GOP executive committee roster and members of the Legislature. Word began to circulate among those political figures that the Governor’s Office was pushing for Harris.

Abraham today acknowledged some Friday conversations, but said they did not represent pressure, threats or promises. He described speaking with one lawmaker at the Capitol and said another called him at home on Friday evening to state his preferred candidate for chairman.

“You don’t threaten anybody. You can’t promise support for anything,” Abraham said. “I heard we threatened to veto things, and I wouldn’t have even known what to veto. We don’t do business that way. There’s no point in threatening people.”

Instead, Abraham said he spoke with the delegate about Justice’s common interest in the development of southern West Virginia. That’s different from a promise made or withheld, Abraham said.

“My only point is he’s from southern West Virginia, and I wanted to express to him the governor is a supporter of the counties in southern West Virginia — how it benefited his people he represents and that’s it,” Abraham said.

“On Saturday he went to the session. I didn’t try to stop him from doing anything. We don’t do business that way. There’s no point.”

Abraham concluded, “There’s nothing unethical about that at all. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I certainly don’t threaten.”

One of the governor’s most significant powers is the veto of legislation. Four years ago, Justice used the power in grand fashion by unveiling a budget bill on a platter with bovine byproduct.

Dianna Graves

His fellow Republicans, with supermajorities in both chambers, would have the power to override those though. And Dianna Graves, who leads the House Republican caucus, made that clear in a statement.

“Using veto power should not be an expression of any personal agenda by the executive, but rather as a thoughtful part of the legislative process. As the Legislature is interested in seeing good legislation pass into law, we are prepared to employ our supermajority by overriding any veto with which we do not agree.”

Saturday

You will need a whiteboard to keep track of Saturday’s activities.

Members of the West Virginia Republican Executive Committee met Saturday afternoon at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. Despite the pandemic, not many masks were worn. Steven Allen Adams with the Ogden Newspapers was the only reporter to attend.

Once Stauffer dropped out and Cornelius was stopped at the door, Lucas and Harris were the only choices.

Harris addressed the executive committee and briefly alluded to the troubles at the VAMC.

“A person who worked for me engaged in serious misconduct and was removed,” Harris was quoted in the Ogden Newspapers. “Shortly thereafter I was replaced as chief of staff and currently I am retired. However, this election is not about me. It’s also not about you … it’s about us. It’s about the Republican Party of West Virginia.”

The vote was very close. Harris was announced the winner by a 57-55 vote. Lucas, who declined to comment for this story, scurried over to Harris, shook his hand and started to leave.

Hold up.

There were challenges. And confusion.

The secretary tabulated the vote one way, but others recorded it differently.

This is the first official tabulation of the GOP chairman vote.

Even more confusion followed that. Time dragged on. Who really knows who called who and who texted who.

There was a debate about whether vice chairs were truly entitled to vote. They were ruled out.

The only thing generally agreed upon was counting the votes again.

On the recount, Harris was deemed the winner, 56-53.

Even that had elements of intrigue.

Cornelius, who is still fighting his ouster as Wood County chairman, says he was improperly denied a vote, which would have been for Lucas.

Delegate Marty Gearheart, R-Mercer, is no longer on the party executive committee but had a proxy for Delegate Joe Ellington, another Mercer County Republican, who is. Over the telephone, Gearheart acknowledged that Ellington wanted his vote to be cast so it would support another delegate, Dianna Graves, who would have been on Lucas’s leadership team.

But Gearheart has worked with Harris the past couple years and believes he’ll do a good job. Also, Gearheart ran for Congress against Lucas — although both lost. Gearheart says he was straightforward with Ellington about how he would deploy the proxy, and so he cast Ellington’s vote for Harris. Ellington did not respond to an email to his Statehouse address.

There’s more.

Anderson, the Greenbrier County GOP chairman, had a proxy for Senator Jack Woodrum, R-Summers. Anderson supported Harris all along. On the first vote he cast Woodrum’s vote for Lucas, and on the recount he cast Woodrum’s vote for Harris.

Woodrum did not respond to an email to his Senate address. Anderson responded with an email and a followup phone call.

“Near the end of the 2nd roll call, it became apparent to some that the vote may end in a tie,” Anderson wrote. “With the amount of strife and confusion surrounding the election process, I knew that a tie could make the situation far worse. I made the decision to change the proxy vote at that time to avoid what would have been an extremely difficult situation in what had already been a challenging election for the parliamentarian and the body at large.”

Several House members have said Delegate Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, first voted for Lucas and then voted for Harris. Pack didn’t respond to emails sent to his personal or House email addresses.

With such a close vote, any change of a couple of those actions could have flipped the outcome.

Abraham, the governor’s chief of staff, again said he had nothing to do with any of that.

“I was home on Saturday, and I didn’t call anybody on Saturday,” he said.

Aftermath

Once Harris was declared the winner, he presided over the rest of the meeting.

Within minutes, “I texted him my congratulations and the governor put out the tweet with his congratulations,” Abraham said.

Harris says he is ready to get to work, improving the operations of the party and preparing for midterm elections. Additional focus, he said, will be on the platform and the Constitution.

As he settles into the role of leader of the West Virginia GOP, Harris says he has no regrets.

“I thought about it and prayed about it and talked to my family about it,” he said. “I decided to give it a shot, and I’m very very thankful.”





More News

News
As Yeager Airport's Wildlife Patrol Dog turns 7, a new dog comes in to learn from him
The new Border Collie is getting acclimated and receiving training for his soon-to-be role.
March 28, 2024 - 6:30 pm
News
Dunlow Volunteer Fire Department closes
The Dunlow VFD did not have a valid workers compensation insurance policy.
March 28, 2024 - 6:20 pm
News
PEIA examines financial effects of new law meant to ensure local pharmacies get fair reimbursements
Gov. Jim Justice signed Senate Bill 453 into law this week.
March 28, 2024 - 4:11 pm
News
Barbour County woman sentenced after death case sent back to circuit court by Supreme Court
Carli Reed sentenced on voluntary manslaughter conviction.
March 28, 2024 - 4:11 pm