State Auditor Mark Hunt says he is not certain whether his office, which plays a lead role as fraud and waste watchdog, is under federal investigation itself. He acknowledged an inquiry, though.
“I have received no target subject, nothing. I haven’t — no one’s talked to me. No one sent me a letter,” Hunt, a Republican elected to the office in 2024, said today on MetroNews Talkline.
MetroNews reported late last month that the Auditor’s Office denied an information request for subpoenas issued to the office or its personnel, saying the release of the documents would compromise federal grand jury material.
Asked on Talkline to clarify whether the office is under investigation, Hunt responded, ” I don’t know. I mean, the the feds have asked for some documentation.
“You know, we have people in the office who handle those type of issues, I haven’t seen them, and I understand that the requests have have been marked with that. There’s boxes I think that they marked — it said it’s confidential, so, you know, I can’t say what they are.”
A federal grand jury is a group of citizens summoned by a U.S. District Court to hear evidence and decide whether there is enough to move forward with charges.
A grand jury does not decide if someone is guilty or innocent. They only decide if there is “probable cause” to believe a federal crime was committed.
Not every grand jury results in charges. And, in the step after that, not every set of charges results in conviction.
The grand jury can compel witnesses to testify or demand the production of documents through official subpoenas.
The West Virginia State Auditor serves as the state’s official bookkeeper, chief financial inspector and supervisor of public offices.
The Auditor investigates waste, fraud and abuse across state agencies and local governments.
Hunt, a former state delegate and senator, has served as the state Auditor since 2025. He has practiced law for 30 years, initially as managing partner of Hunt & Serreno PLLC and later at Mark A. Hunt & Associates PLLC.
Over the weekend, West Virginia Watch reported that Hunt had personally stepped in to sign deed transfers to an associate, a duty typically assigned to the deputy land commissioner.
These transactions occur after landowners default on their property taxes, leaving their property vulnerable to tax auction. Property owners have time and options to make good on their overdue taxes. Likewise, a buyer has to put up redemption money within a certain amount of time.
Besides the question about whether the auditor himself has had authority to sign off on property auction purchases, questions have arisen about whether Hunt did so outside the timetable in West Virginia statute.
For example, an Auditor’s transaction notice about a Boone County property specifically told a buyer that according to state code, “I am prohibited from executing a deed after November 14, 2024. If you fail to comply with this deadline, your rights will be considered forfeited and expired and no tax deed will be issued.”
Yet that same transaction record indicates the deed fee was received by the Auditor on March 28, 2025, beyond the timeline explicitly described under state law.
State code indicates that if time is expiring on the property transfer but there’s been no approval, the buyer can petition to the court.
Hunt said on Talkline that as the elected authority figure in the office, he stepped in nine times to sign transfer documents that had fallen behind on final disposition. He acknowledged doing so in about nine instances and said he would have done so for anyone.
“So the auditor sitting in equity, me, decided we’ll sign the deeds rather than get sued and go to court. Create a little bit of you know a little bit of savings in the in the court system and maybe a few savings in our bankroll as far as as our defense of things,” Hunt said today.
He continued, “I’m the boss; I’ll take the heat.”
Delegate Tristan Leavitt, an attorney and president of Empower Oversight, a nonprofit that provides guidance to whistleblowers, said on Talkline that state law lays out a clear process if buyers at property auctions believe the Auditor’s office is not moving in a timely fashion, and that’s not at the discretion of the Auditor himself.
The legal process “is just that the person who wants it says ‘I passed 120 days, I didn’t get it. I just go to a judge, and then the judge can look at this and sort this out. And if I should have gotten my deed, the judge will order it.’ But the code says that’s the only way that the auditor’s office can issue this,” said Leavitt, R-Kanawha.
Bottom line, Leavitt said, “As the public comes to understand this, I have called for the auditor to resign because again this is in clear violation of the code.”
West Virginia Democrats called for an immediate, independent state investigation into the Auditor’s office actions.
“Let’s get this straight,” said Democratic Party Chairman Mike Pushkin, who is also a state delegate from Charleston. “The State Auditor’s Office handles approximately 17,000 property deeds a year. Mark Hunt personally signed nine of them, and every single one benefited a company connected to his longtime friend and employee, whose wife also contributed to his political campaigns.
“State law says those deeds are supposed to be signed by the deputy land commissioner, not the State Auditor. That raises an obvious question: Why did Mark Hunt single out these nine deeds for his personal attention?”
The Auditor’s office under Hunt has faced a few controversies over the past year. One was over its hiring of a sitting state senator as a contract employee. Another was whether the Auditor’s office should have flagged a financial crisis with Hancock County schools before it boiled over.
Hunt today said citizens should continue to place their trust in his office.
“The Auditor’s office is running well. We’re bringing in revenue. We’re doing the job of the Auditor. This land division has been a problem from day one. It continues to be a problem on day two,” he said.