Will Cosol Energy Be Cuccinelli's Undoing?

Consol Energy money time line - click Image to enlarge

With Election Day just 2 days away here in Virginia, more attention than usual is focused on Southwest Virginia, an area of the state where Republican candidates typically dominate.  There is little belief that Democrat Terry McAuliffe will beat the extreme Ken Cuccinelli in the region.  But there is much speculation as to whether or not Cuccinelli will be able to achieve the victory margin to counterbalance the populous urban areas of Virginia where McAuliffe will likely win the day.  If Cuccinelli doesn't win in Southwest Virginia by the margin he needs, the loss may well be a self-inflicted one thanks to Cuccinelli's greed and willingness to accept bribes large contributions from the energy industry in exchange for legal favors.  Here are highlights from the Bristol News:

Southwest Virginia could be a deciding factor in who wins the governor’s seat in Tuesday’s election.

The region was supposed to be a safe base for gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Here, he should have been able to count on solid Republican support while the heavily populated regions around Northern Virginia and Tidewater cranked out the massive toss-up votes, likely to fall into the hands of Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

But the natural-gas royalties controversy, sparked by a senior assistant attorney general’s help to energy companies being sued by regional landowners, threw that plan into a tailspin.

As a result, state political experts are now echoing a similar refrain about the region becoming a must-win for Cuccinelli.

“If he can’t hold off Terry McAuliffe in Southwest Virginia, then it’s over,” said Geoffrey Skelley, of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Billionaire environmentalist and McAuliffe backer Tom Steyer seized on the royalties controversy when it broke months ago and hasn’t let go. “I do think this is an incredibly powerful story and one that could change opinions about [Cuccinelli’s] reputation,” he said.

His political action committee, the San Francisco-based NextGen Climate Action, has spent slightly more than $2.4 million on television spots hammering the Republican candidate as a sell-out to out-of-state companies, according to non-partisan political spending tracker Virginia Public Access Project.

Voters across the state have seen the spots a lot. Ads featuring pictures of the attorney general, gas drilling pumps and newspaper clippings have splashed across TVs in Southwest Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and in the Tidewater region.

The ads seem to have resonated with some regional voters, wrote Jesse T. Richman, political science associate professor at Old Dominion University.

Fanning the flames even higher is the more than $140,000 in cash dropped into Cuccinelli’s campaign coffers since 2010 by Pittsburgh-based CONSOL Energy, which owns one of the energy companies being sued.

Cuccinelli needs more than just a win in Southwest Virginia, said Harry Wilson, professor and political analyst at Roanoke College. He needs a resounding victory.  “If Cuccinelli doesn’t win Southwest Virginia then this will be a landslide of epic proportions,” Wilson said.

Simply put, the Republican candidate will count on the rural area as a base of stability while he slugs it out for votes in the state’s more densely populated urban areas. And he has to do it knowing the natural-gas royalties controversy might have muddied the waters just enough to pull that base out from under him.

Cuccinelli in Bristol to Shore Up Support in Southwest Virginia

Consol Energy campaign contribution timeline - Click to enlarge

Certainly over the last 25 years, Southwest Virginia has always been reliably Republican and any GOP candidate could plan on overwhelming voter support absent being "found in bed with a boy or a dead girl" as some have said.  Yet, less than a week before election day, Ken Cuccinelli was in Bristol, Virginia campaigning to shore up support in Southwest Virginia.  Equally, surprising, he only had 30 people turn out.  Apparently, Cuccinelli's acceptance of campaign bribes contributions from Consol Energy is continuing to haunt him. One can only hope that this all demonstrates that Cuccinelli is in real trouble.  Here are details from Tricities.Com:

BRISTOL , Va. – With just a few days left until Tuesday’s election, Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli stopped by downtown Bristol early Thursday to shore up his support base in Southwest Virginia.

Cuccinelli spoke inside the dusty construction site of the Birthplace of Country Music museum, a work in progress that is expected to open next year. And his audience was a friendly crowd of about 30 who responded to his message with claps, hoots and the occasional “amen!”

“The single biggest decision in Virginia that the next governor will make on our budget will be to either support or oppose expanding Obamacare in Virginia with the Medicaid expansion,” he said. “We will not hug Obamacare. We will keep our distance as best we can.”

The attorney general has trekked into Southwest Virginia several times in the last month, with a meet-and-greet lunch held in an Abingdon restaurant and a stump speech from the steps of the Washington County courthouse.

On Thursday, Cuccinelli’s planned path from Bristol was to wind northward to Tazewell, on to Wytheville and then to Galax. A return trip to Bristol is also set for Sunday.

The many stops in a region that traditionally votes Republican could be an attempt to regain any votes lost as a result of a scandal in which a senior assistant attorney general provided legal advice to energy company lawyers embroiled in a federal lawsuit with regional landowners seeking millions in natural gas royalties. The controversy intensified because CONSOL Energy, the parent company of one of the energy companies involved, has dropped $111,044 into Cuccinelli’s campaign since 2012.

McAuliffe’s campaign pointed to the campaign contribution Thursday when offered an opportunity to comment about Cuccinelli’s local stop.

“Ken Cuccinelli is the last one who should be talking about the needs of Southwest Virginia after he took more than $100,000 from the out-of-state energy company his office was inappropriately aiding in its fight against Southwest Virginia landowners,” McAuliffe campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin wrote.

I continue to hope that Cuccinelli's extremism, his greed and his sense of entitlement will be his undoing. 

Consol Energy Scandal Continues to Plague Cuccinelli

I have written a number of times about the improper legal assistance given to energy companies by Ken Cuccinelli's office against Virginia landowners fighting to receive gas royalty payments.  The Virginia Inspector General's office recently found the legal assistance to have been improper, much of it being given long after the Attorney General's office had any legitimate continuing involvement in the litigation.  Cuccinelli has claimed that he knew nothing about the improper actions of his Assistant Attorney General, Sharon Pidgeon.  As noted before, I find Cuccinelli's claimed ignorance unbelievable.  Especially since one of the energy company's parent entities had given $111,000 to Cuccinelli's campaign.  As the Washington Post reports, many in Southwest Virginia seem to likewise believe that Cuccinelli is lying.  Here are article highlights:

WISE, Va. — Amid the struggling businesses and flattened mountaintops strip-mined decades ago, antipathy toward Democrats and what’s known in this region as their “war on coal” is stronger than just about anywhere else in the country.

That has translated naturally into broad opposition to Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor this year. But across the coal fields of far-southwest Virginia, something unusual is also happening: Voters don’t like the Republican candidate, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II, much better.

Cuccinelli’s struggles seem to stem largely from a complex legal case that pits big coal companies against local property owners over the extraction of gas from Virginia land. A lawyer in Cuccinelli’s office intervened on behalf of the companies, and McAuliffe has seized on that to cast the Republican as something other than the defender-of-the-little-guy he has claimed to be throughout this year’s contentious campaign.

Resulting polls, which show McAuliffe and Cuccinelli each capturing well under 50 percent of likely voters’ support in southwest Virginia, reveal a deep vein of economic pain running through a region that presents a study in contrast to the relative prosperity and employment levels of Northern Virginia.

But these voters’ easy suspicions also reveal a vulnerability for Republicans, who depend mightily on running up big winning margins among rural voters in a state where the more populous urban and suburban regions have been trending Democratic in most recent elections. If a Republican doesn’t win by a lot in rural Virginia, there are few other paths to victory.

“Whether I vote for an independent person or I vote for Terry McAuliffe, I know one thing: I am not voting for Ken Cuccinelli, because I can’t trust him,” [Aimee] Compton [of Lebannon] said.

That kind of sentiment has become surprisingly common this election year in a region that has stayed stubbornly red even as the rest of Virginia has tinged purple. 

In a Washington Post/Abt-SRBI poll conducted in mid-September, the Republican took 33 percent of registered voters in southwest Virginia, while McAuliffe drew 31 percent.

“I don’t think the man ought to get elected by somebody that’s paying him. To me, that’s not good politics,” said Eddie Fletcher, a disabled former construction and coal worker from Rowe who is particularly bothered by Consol’s donations to Cuccinelli.

I hope the voters of Southwest Virginia continue to see Cuccinelli for what I see him to be: a corrupt, lying extremist who would be bad for Virginia if elected.  

Cuccinelli's Assistant Improperly Aided Energy Companies

The Virginia Inspector General's report is out and as no surprise, at least to me with an energy company background from my role as in-house counsel to an oil and gas company, report finds that Ken Cuccinelli's Assistant Attorney General, Sharon Pidgeon, acted improperly when she provided legal advice and trial strategy to energy companies embroiled in litigation with Virginia landowners seeking to secure gas royalty payments due to them.  Pidgeon's and Cuccinelli's original excuse was that Pidgeon was defending the constitutionality of Virginia's force pooling statute.  However, her role and assistance continued long after that aspect of the litigation ended.  As noted before, I find it inconceivable that Pidgeon acted alone and without the knowledge of Cuccinelli who just happened to have received $111,000 in campaign contribution from the parent company of one of the energy company litigants.   In my opinopn, both Pidgeon and Cuccinelli are lying.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Virginia’s inspector general has found that a deputy in the office of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II improperly collaborated with energy companies in a legal dispute over natural gas royalties in southwest Virginia, according to a report released Tuesday.

Inspector General Michael F.A. Morehart said that Sharon Pigeon, a senior assistant attorney general, “inappropriately” used state resources to assist the energy companies on legal strategy in a battle between landowners and coal companies over the extraction of natural gas from coal beds.

The long-running and complicated dispute, in which property owners have accused two out-of-state coal companies of withholding millions in gas royalties owed to them, has become a bitter issue in the Virginia governor’s race between Cuccinelli (R) and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

McAuliffe’s campaign has pummeled Cuccinelli for his office’s intervention on behalf of the energy companies while highlighting the campaign contributions he has received from the industry. Cuccinelli has maintained that he has done nothing wrong and took steps to correct the situation after his deputy’s actions came to light.

Pigeon told the inspector general that she had intervened to defend a state law that dictates how disputes are to be settled between landowners and energy companies over natural gas extraction from coal beds, Morehart’s letter says.

But after reviewing dozens of e-mails, the inspector general found that Pigeon assisted energy companies directly, in some cases improperly, and continued to do so after a federal court had upheld the law in question, in September 2011. Morehart found that Pigeon’s assistance inappropriately extended to strategy that could benefit the companies in potential state litigation outside the federal court, the letter says.

The legal dispute — which involves perhaps hundreds of landowners and about $28 million in disputed royalties — pits property owners against two of Virginia’s largest producers of natural gas pumped from coal seams, known as coal-bed methane.

The dispute has led to accusations that Cuccinelli, who has stressed his advocacy for the plight of coal workers, has sided with energy companies at the expense of southwest Virginians. And it has given McAuliffe an opening to attract support in a part of the state that has voted heavily Republican in recent years, in part because of the Obama administration’s environmental policies.
“The Virginia Inspector General confirmed today what Virginians have found troubling for months — that Ken Cuccinelli’s office had stepped over the line and improperly used taxpayer funds to advise out-of-state energy companies trying to avoid paying Southwest Virginia landowners mining royalties that are rightfully theirs,” McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a written statement. Schwerin called on Cuccinelli to return campaign contributions from one of the energy companies.

The inspector general opened the investigation after news reports that a U.S. magistrate had expressed shock that Pigeon was assisting the energy companies. State Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) also called for an independent examination. Puckett said at the time that he was troubled because Consol Energy has contributed more than $111,000 to Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial campaign.

Cuccinelli has consistently demonstrated that he believes that he is above the law and that money from donors looking for political and legal favors is the norm with him. 

Ken Cuccinelli's Office Knew of Staffer's Improper Aid to Energy Companies

Ken Cuccinelli has tried to dodge the simmer scandal that is harming him greatly with voters in Southwest Virginia by claiming that his office did not know about Assistant Attorney General Sharon Pidgeon's aid to affiliates of Consol Energy, one of Cuccinelli's largest campaign donors.  As with pretty much everything that comes out of Cuccinelli's mouth, the claims are untrue.  As the Bristol Herald Courier is reporting, Pidgeon continued advising the energy companies against Virginia landowners for months after Cuccinelli's office learned of the ongoing communications.  In short, Cuccinelli has lied yet again.  Just as he has lied about his extreme agenda while in the Virginia Senate and then as Attorney General.  As noted previously, from my experience with the AG's office, it is utterly inconceivable that Pidgeon followed this course of action without the knowledge, much less the direction of her superiors, including Cuccinelli himself.  Here are highlights from the Herald Courier coverage:

A state Attorney General’s Office staffer continued to advise energy companies how to fight landowners suing over natural gas royalties for months after the state’s top law office learned of the communications, a Bristol Herald Courier review of the emails shows.

Whether the communications continued with AG Ken Cuccinelli’s knowledge remains a mystery because his office refuses to say when he personally learned of the emails or when he officially shut down the staffer’s contact with the corporate attorneys.

Despite being in the spotlight, AG staffer Sharon Pigeon went on to suggest how a corporate lawyer might pull the rug out from under one of the landowner plaintiffs.

“How many hats can he (the plaintiff) wear in all this?” she complained in one of two emails sent after her correspondence became the grist of legal debate. “Apparently, he wants the benefits of the royalty being paid, but wants to undermine the system enabling that payment.”

Mention of 52 emails swapped between Pigeon and lawyers for energy companies EQT Production and CNX Gas appeared in court documents in mid-2012. Some of the actual emails — sent from 2010 through 2012 — were publicly filed later that year as part of the court record.

At the time, lawyers representing Southwest Virginia landowners in a series of five class-action lawsuits were arguing for access to Pigeon’s emails to determine whether they would bolster the fight for the royalties.

Pigeon continued to offer advice on how to defeat one of the lawsuits in an email sent to CNX attorney Jonathan Blank on Aug. 28, 2012, and later on Sept. 5, 2012.

In the first email, she suggested Blank could shoot down the case if he could find any mention in state or local records of royalty payments made to one of the main plaintiffs or to his relatives. This is the email where she complains that the plaintiff wears “many hats.”

In the second email, she merely states “To refresh your memory,” and includes a copy of the previous email where she recommends the records search.

Cuccinelli says his office joined the federal lawsuit only to fight the constitutional challenges to the Virginia Gas and Oil Act, which created the escrow accounts.

A Herald Courier review of her emails shows she suggested such courtroom tactics as combating a likely information request to discover other landowners owed royalties, as well as countering arguments against the amount of royalty proceeds they sought.

The emails have become a sore spot in Republican Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial run — CNX parent company CONSOL Energy has poured $140,044 into his campaign since he became attorney general in 2010.

Consol Energy: Ken Cuccinelli Seeks to Paint His Assistant AG As Rogue Agent

 

Not surprisingly, Ken Cuccinelli is striving desperately to depict Senior Assistant Attorney General Sharon Pigeon - who improperly aided Consol Energy affiliated litigants in a lawsuit against Virginia landowners - as a rouge operative who needs to be thrown under the bus.  Having had numerous dealings  with the Attorney General's office - and a former law partner who was Virginia Attorney General - I find it incredible that Ms. Pigeon would have engaged in such extensive assistance to energy company litigants on her own.  Stated more directly, I can only conclude that Cuccinelli is lying to try to save his sorry ass.  He apparently believes that all Virginia voters are gullible cretins (he obviously needs to spend less time in the GOP/The Family Foundation bubble).  The Roanoke Times looks at the fairy tale that Cuccinelli is trying to spin.  Here are highlights:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office is distancing itself from the staffer who in a series of emails appears to have advised energy company lawyers in their defense of an ongoing lawsuit over natural gas royalties in Southwest Virginia.

Senior Assistant Sharon Pigeon “was not writing the emails at the direction of anyone in Richmond,” Cuccinelli spokesman Brian Gottstein wrote in a recent email to the Bristol Herald Courier.
Pigeon is now barred from further discussing with corporate lawyers their federal battle against regional landowners seeking gas royalties, Gottstein wrote, and her job of scrutinizing the cases’ potential impact on Virginia’s gas drilling laws has been handed to someone else.

The attorney general’s spokesman, when asked Friday to clarify what working outside the Richmond headquarters had to do with the emails, replied that he will no longer answer the newspaper’s questions because of the way it has covered the story.

“I’m not dealing with you anymore,” he wrote.

Pigeon is the legal adviser to the Lebanon-based Virginia Gas and Oil Board, which oversees the state-mandated escrow account now holding at least $30 million in disputed natural gas royalties. She swapped at least 52 emails from 2010 through 2012 with attorneys representing CNX Gas and EQT Production in their fight against regional landowners seeking those royalties.

A Herald Courier review of those emails shows that Pigeon suggested such courtroom tactics as combating a likely information request to discover other landowners who were owed royalties, as well as countering arguments against the amount of royalty proceeds they sought.

Her electronic messages — and questions about the relationship between the state’s highest legal office and corporate energy lawyers — have become a hot topic in the state’s gubernatorial race. Cuccinelli is the Republican candidate running against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Adding to the debate is the role that CNX parent company CONSOL Energy has as one of the top financial contributors to Cuccinelli’s campaign. The company has dropped $140,044 into his campaign since he took over the AG’s office in 2010, according to campaign watchdog Virginia Public Access Project.

Cuccinelli defends Pigeon’s dealings with energy company lawyers as “overzealous” . . . . 

[C]onstitutional law expert Carl Tobias, of the University of Richmond School of Law, questions the contents of Pigeon’s emails and how they appear to offer legal help.  “It’s not in good judgment to be helping one side or the other,” Tobias said. “In this case, it’s sounding like she’s helping the defendants.”

Again, I find Cuccinelli's story line to be  unbelievable.  Like most Christofascists, Cuccinelli believes that the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness does not apply to him.

New Ad Hits Ken Cuccinelli on CONSOL Energy Scandal

I have been maintaining for some time that Ken Cuccinelli's "Giftgate" scandal involving money and gifts received from Jonnie R. Williams, Sr./Star Scientific pales in comparison to the Consol Energy scandal in which Cuccinelli received $140,000 in exchange for improper assistance to private energy company litigants battling against Virginia property owners.  Now, a new ad that I mentioned previously is about to hit the airwaves and hopefully educate voters on this scandal.  According to Mike Casey of NextGen Climate Action Committee Virginia the ad will run in the Richmond, Roanoke, and Norfolk markets for the next 10 days starting tomorrow morning.  Casey also noted that the "CONSOL scandal is far, far worse - it's a lot more money, it's a gross violation of public trust, and it involves an active state investigation into his office's conduct."  In fact, Casey added, "it appears that the only reason why [Cuccinelli himself] is not being investigated is because of the loophole in Virginia's Inspector General law."  Here are more details on Casey's remarks via Blue Virginia:

[A]s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wasn't just enriching himself with luxury gifts and meals from Jonnie Williams, while pleading poverty...when he was faced with calls to return that money on a $194,000-per-year salary, he was taking enormous amounts of campaign cash from an out-of-state fossil fuel company while his office helped it rip off the people that elected him...Campaign shake-ups, 30-minute Hail Mary commercials, and a YouTube apology video is not going to address the very ugly timing of contributions and favors in the CONSOL scandal...

Ken Cuccinelli must release all of his office's email contacts with CONSOL, he needs to return this dirty money, and he needs to stop ducking questions...He has run from the media, he has run from watchdog groups, and he has run from citizens - it is ridiculous...Ken Cuccinelli's corruption is making us look like some sort of banana republic...This commercial is not going to be the last [Cuccinelli] will hear [on this issue]...

He's in deep trouble in Southwest Virginia and he should be, because that's where most of the people who were hurt by his actions live, and this commercial is designed to ensure that the rest of the state zeroes in on these questions and presses him for answers. We have every confidence that this is becoming not just a Southwest Virginia issue but a statewide issue...

...Being a climate denier and appearing to rent out the top law enforcement office [in Virginia] to an out-of-state fossil fuel company go hand and hand.

Cuccinelli can dissemble all he wants, but the reality is that something stinks to high Heaven and I find it impossible to believe that Cuccinelli's office took it upon itself to improperly aid energy companies without Cuccinelli's knowledge and direction.  If he claims otherwise, there is one word that describes him: LIAR.
 

Consol Energy - Ken Cuccinelli's Most Serious Conflict of Interest/Ethics Problem

Click image to enlarge

Even though he has donated $18,000 to a charity - a charity run by some of his large donors - in an effort to deflect the ongoing "Gift Gate" scandal arising from gifts he received from Jonnie R. Williams, Sr./Star Scientific, Ken Cuccinelli continues to take a beating and is accused of doing too little too late.  But by far the largest ethical/conflict of interest problem for Kookinelli is that relating to Consol Energy and the improper assistance Cuccinelli's office gave to private litigants in a civil lawsuit against Virginia landowners.   The Virginia news media should be jumping on this issue non-stop.  Given the timing of the AG's office's improper assistance and the subsequent large contributions made to Cuccinelli's campaign by the beneficiaries of such improper assistance, it is difficult to see the contributions as anything other than payments made in exchange for favorable treatment.  Another word for such payments might be bribes.   

As noted before in prior posts, I find it inconceivable that a senior Assistant Attorney General would have provided assistance to the energy company litigants without directives from above.  From my many dealings with the AG's office, such things simply do not happen and Cuccinelli's claims that he knew nothing about it just do not ring true.   From my experience in the oil and gas industry (both with a law firm representing energy companies and as in-house counsel for the oil and gas subsidiary of a Fortune 50 company), this type of assistance is NOT normal and simply does not happen under normal circumstances.  In short, it is difficult to explain why the improper assistance occurred except Cuccinelli's use of his office to benefit contributors in exchange for money.  In my view, the FBI needs to be investigating Cuccinelli for this behavior which would seem to be directly tied to very large campaign contributions.  A piece in The Checks and Balances Project lays out a timeline that shows that Cuccinelli's lies explanations to date do not add up.  Here are highlights:

The unfolding controversy around Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s involvement with CONSOL Energy Inc., a Pittsburgh-based fossil fuel (oil, gas and coal) company, has focused on the widely criticized assistance his office provided the company. It also has focused on the total amount of money Cuccinelli has received from CONSOL.

When forced to respond to C&BP recently, Cuccinelli has asserted the company “gave me $100,000 after I opposed them.” A comparison of the timing of contributions and actions that favored CONSOL paint a very different picture.

In the first eight years of Mr. Cuccinelli’s political career (state senate), his campaigns received a total of $3,500 from CONSOL. However, once elected to Attorney General, his office began taking actions that favored CONSOL and disadvantaged southwestern Virginia landowners who hadn’t been paid by CONSOL. A comparison of the timelines of actions and money show a pattern of accelerating support as favorable actions increased, bringing a total of $140,000 to Cuccinelli after the actions favorable to CONSOL began.

In June 2010, Mr. Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion that limited the jurisdiction of the Virginia Gas and Oil Board that forced Virginia landowners to go to court over royalty payments, a move clearly in CONSOL Energy’s favor.

Two months later, in August 2010, his office sided with CONSOL and against Virginians in a lawsuit to recover improperly withheld royalties, helping the out-of-state oil company defend against a claim by Virginia landowners.

From August 2010 through April 2012, Cuccinelli’s office (through a Senior Assistant Attorney General Sharon Pigeon) began secretly providing legal research and advice to CONSOL’s attorneys regarding the lawsuit, outside of the scope of the AG office’s official capacity. The Virginia Inspector General is now investigating to determine whether the AG’s office misused taxpayer funds.

Finally, Mr. Cuccinelli, helped CONSOL again earlier this year when he issued another advisory opinion that barred local jurisdictions from using zoning laws to establish fracking moratoriums.

This situation stinks to high heaven and Virginia voters and taxpayers deserve answers as to why Cuccinelli was improperly assisting out of state energy companies against Virginia landowners and taxpayers.  To date, Cuccinelli runs from reporters when asked about this very dirty business. 

 

Richmond Times Dispatch Column: Cuccinelli’s Damage Control Too Little, Too Late

I must confess that there is some sweet satisfaction watching Ken Cuccinelli twist on the rope created by his own greed, arrogance and unethical conduct.  As noted yesterday, he has belatedly tried to quell "Gift Gate" issues that may yet force Bob McDonnell from office by donating $18,000 - the supposed value of the gifts Cuccinelli received from McDonnell's benefactor - to a Richmond charity.  However, Cuccinelli has done nothing in respect to the $140,000 he received from Consol Energy and its affiliates in what would seem to be exchange for the Attorney General's office assisting energy companies in private, civil litigation with Virginia landowners.  A coulm in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at Cuccinelli's lame efforts.  Here are excerpts:

Ken Cuccinelli thinks he’s found a way to unring the bell.

Gambling he can start talking about issues other than himself, the Republican nominee for governor announced Tuesday that he is donating to charity $18,000 — roughly the value of controversial gifts and goodies from Jonnie Williams Sr., the rich political uncle Cuccinelli and Bob McDonnell now wish they never had.

As an exercise in damage control, it could prove too little, too late.

Republicans tried waving off Giftgate as trite and insignificant when it exploded in late March. Nearly six months later, the scandal is wrecking McDonnell’s governorship and threatens to prevent Cuccinelli’s.

Pleading poverty, Cuccinelli said in July that he could not reimburse Williams for his beneficence.
“There are some bells you can’t unring,” Cuccinelli said two months ago.  But having had his bell rung in public-opinion polls that suggest voters view him as untrustworthy and unlikeable, Cuccinelli came up with 18 large for CrossOver Ministry, a health clinic for Richmond’s poor. The money was scrounged, his campaign said, from Cuccinelli’s accounts and those of his wife and their family.
End of discussion?  Not likely.

In the remaining eight weeks of this campaign, Cuccinelli must still explain how and why he allowed himself and his current office — the attorney generalship — to become ensnared in this ethical tangle in the first place. Such questions are kept alive not only by the cash-fueled Democratic noise machine, but also by two investigations into McDonnell and his knotty relationship with Williams.

As if that’s not enough, there is the growing phalanx of private lawyers — paid at growing expense to taxpayers — hired to defend McDonnell, the staff of the governor’s office and other state employees in Giftgate and related matters because Cuccinelli, as attorney general, can’t. That’s because Cuccinelli has a conflict of interest. . . . The bill for all those lawyers, so far, is nearly $250,000.

As if that’s not enough, there are two other private lawyers — one a former attorney general; the other, a former solicitor general, both Republicans and partners in the same firm — representing the state in its continuing fight with Star Scientific over $2.2 million in unpaid taxes and penalties on company warehouses in Mecklenburg County. . . .  they’re handling the case is a consequence of yet another Cuccinelli conflict of interest. He quit the case because of his stake in Star Scientific. Cuccinelli owned shares in the firm at the same time he was pressing it to pay its tax bill. He ultimately sold his shares at a loss.

Cuccinelli might have avoided all of this with one simple step he stubbornly insisted he would not take: resign as attorney general, freeing him from many of the constraints of a lawyer; freeing him to be a candidate.

How Cuccinelli disclosed his attempted game-changer shows that the candidate has largely lost control of his message.   Cuccinelli announced it by attempting to bypass the news media, issuing a video news release . . . 

It's a mess of Cuccinelli's own creation due to greed and arrogance.  And the column doesn't even get into the Consol Energy fiasco.

New Ad Underscores Ken Cuccinelli's Efforts to Help Energy Companies Screw Virginians

A new ad by NextGen Climate Action Virginia will underscore a sore subject with many Virginians from Southwest Virginia in particular.  The ad?  A piece that looks at Cuccinelli's office assisting Consol Energy screw over Virginia landowners and short change them on gas royalty payments.  Here are details via Blue Virginia:

NextGen Climate Action's Virginia campaign will begin tomorrow to air a roughly half-million dollar advertising buy with this ad.  Over a roughly 10-day period, it will run in the Richmond, Norfolk and Roanoke markets.

This is the first in a series of ads we plan to do highlighting important, basic questions Ken Cuccinelli clearly doesn't want to answer about the scandals surrounding his conduct in office - and what it says about him.

We now have a pattern of Cuccinelli dismissing, spinning or turning away from questions - whether they are from reporters, a 74 year-old landowner, or young Virginia voters. You can see the pattern here.

The problem for Ken Cuccinelli is that in Virginia, you have to actually talk to reporters and voters if you want to be Governor. You don't get to duck the big questions for eight weeks. Then again, it's pretty clear why he won't answer the questions: It looks bad. He's our top law enforcement official, he took $100,000 from an out-of-state fossil fuel company while his office helped that company rip off Virginians -- and then played disclosure games to avoid getting caught.

This is unacceptable. People like me move to, stay and do business in Virginia because it's been a well-run state. But the McDonnell and Cuccinelli scandals are threatening to turn us into a national joke.

Not to sound like a broken record, but during all my years in the oil and gas industry, NEVER, EVER did I see a state attorney general's office assisting energy companies in civil litigation against landowners entitled to royalty payments.  I think we all know that there were over 100,000 reasons why Cuccinelli's staff acted improperly and against Virginia citizens and landowners. 

 

Politifact Virginia: Cuccinelli's Claim that McAuliffe is "Under Investigation" is a Lie

Time and time again we see the "godly Christian" crowd and those who like to proclaim their religiosity lie through their teeth.  Ken Cuccinelli - who would work to impose a Christian Taliban regime over Virginia - is no exception.   He is currently running ads that claim that Terry McAuliffe is under federal investigation.  Politifact Virginia looked at Cuccinelli's claim and the available facts and politely concluded that Cuccinelli is a liar.   Here is the money quote:

Cuccinelli said McAuliffe is the only gubernatorial candidate under formal investigation. He cites an SEC probe into the tactics GreenTech Automotive used to attracted foreign investors. McAuliffe was chairman of the electric car company until last December and remains one of its key stockholders. But there has been no indication that McAuliffe is a target of the SEC investigation. 

The burden of proof falls on Cuccinelli to prove his charge against McAuliffe, and he comes up empty. 

One can only assume that Cuccinelli is desperate to distract voters from his own dirty linen in the form of $18,000 in gifts from Jonnie R. Williams/Star Scientific and the $140,000 he received from the parent company of a gas company being sued by landowners cheated out of royalty payments.  As noted in prior posts, Cuccinelli's office gave unprecedented and highly improper  legal advice and aid to the gas companies against Virginia landowners.  I think we can agree on what the $140,000 bought.

Ken Cuccinelli's Explanation of Aid to Gas Companies Begins to Unravel

Not to beat a dead horse, but as previously noted, NEVER, EVER in my experience as an attorney working in the oil and gas industry did I see a state attorney general's office aiding oil and gas companies in civil litigation matters against landowners over royalty payments.  So-called "force pooling" statutes and regulations - which assembly a group of leases to provide a viable exploration sites for wells - have been around for many decades.  Cuccinelli's office had no legitimate reason to be advising gas companies on litigation strategy, etc.  Absolutely none.  Now, as the Virginian Pilot states in a main page editorial, Cuccinelli's bogus explanation is unraveling big time.  One can only hope that Terry McAuliffe hammers this message home to residents of Southwest Virginia.  Here are editorial highlights:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's credibility suffered another blow recently, after a southwestern Virginia newspaper unearthed records showing a senior assistant in his office communicated through email dozens of times with attorneys representing energy companies in a lawsuit filed by property owners.

Sharon Pigeon, a senior assistant attorney general, "sent at least 52 emails to lawyers of defendants EQT Production and CNX Gas since lawsuits were filed three years ago," the Bristol Herald Courier reported. Consol Energy, the parent of CNX, has contributed more than $100,000 to Cuccinelli's gubernatorial campaign since last year.

And the details simply magnify the concerns expressed by a federal judge three months ago, when she described the attorney's correspondence with the energy companies' legal counsel as "shocking."

The attorney general previously claimed Pigeon's role was limited to defending the constitutionality of the Virginia Gas and Oil Act. But the latest reporting shows there were few, if any, limits to Pigeon's advice, and a federal judge said she found no indication of advice pertaining to constitutional issues, the Bristol paper reported.

"Instead, Pigeon's emails appear to have focused on such topics as the effect of a jury pool, judicial orders and other case issues, suggest references in court documents. She sent many of those emails months after a senior judge ruled on the constitutional challenges and after the attorney general's office dropped out of the case."

The state inspector general is investigating whether Pigeon inappropriately used state resources, but he cannot investigate whether the attorney general had any direct involvement, or direct knowledge, of her actions unless the governor, or the attorney general himself, or a grand jury, requests he do so.

Cuccinelli's initial bid to explain Pigeon's conduct has boomeranged. His only recourse for trying to salvage credibility on the subject now appears to be to draw the same kind of independent scrutiny that he brought on himself this spring, after revising his incomplete financial disclosure forms.

After 36 years in the legal profession, I find it inconceivable that a senior assistant attorney general would have acted as Ms. Pigeon did without directives from above.  There seemingly is no other explanation.  Well, there is one: the over $100,000 Cuccinelli received from the parent company of one of the gas company litigants.    The man is dirty and a liar, in my view.  

 

Cuccinelli Refuses to Answer Voters on His Aid To Gas Companies Against Taxpayers

In addition to his own Jonnie R. Williams, Sr./Star Scientific bribes gifts scandal, Ken Cuccinelli has another problem which seemingly will not go away: his office's improper assistance to gas companies in a civil lawsuit where Virginia landowners are seeking to recover millions in gas royalties they have been shortchanged on.  While Kookinelli denies any connection, the parent company of one of the gas company litigants just happened to give Kookinelli over $100,000.00.  Was it a pay back?  Was it a bribe?  Kookinelli will not say and stormed out of a forum when reports continued to ask about the linkage between the money and his office's improper conduct in a civil litigation matter.  Worse yet, Kookinelli had State Troopers stop reporters from approaching him.   

As noted in prior posts, I once was in a law firm that represented a who's who of oil companies in Alabama.  Later, I was in-house counsel for an oil and gas company.  Never, ever in any of the litigation that I experienced did we receive assistance from the office of a state attorney general in civil lawsuits over royalties. NEVER, EVER.  In my view, this is a huge story and Kookinelli needs to be forced to answer reporters' questions.  If not, a formal investigation needs to be launched.

Huffington Post has details and a video clip of Kookinelli refusing to give Virginians an answer about the seeming linkage between his office's conduct and large money donations.  Here are highlights:

• After siding with Consol Energy in a dispute regarding gas royalties for Virginia landowners, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli received over $100,000 [1] from Consol Energy and its subsidiaries. Our question for Mr. Cuccinelli is simple - given the conflicts of interest in taking money from a company involved in a lawsuit with landowners, will he give the money back?
•  
• The Checks and Balances Project (C&BP) attended a forum yesterday with Mr. Cuccinelli at George Mason University's Koch-funded Mercatus Center and which was organized by fossil fuel front group, Consumer Energy Alliance.
•  
• After the forum, Mr. Cuccinelli took a few questions from reporters before abruptly walking off after C&BP asked about the more than $100,000 he has received from Consol.  Here's what happened:
•  

• C&BP: "You've received over $100,000 from Consol Energy since you sided with them? Will you give that money back?
  
  Mr. Cuccinelli: "I did not receive $100,000 since I sided with them. I received $100,000 in contributions since I opposed them.
  
  Mike Stark (from FossilAgenda.com): Then why did they give you $100,000?
  
  Cuccinelli: I'm the only candidate who's proposed a solution to the gas. [inaudible]
  C&BP: I've heard you say that before... but do you...
  
  Cuccinelli: If you don't have an actual question, thank you very much. [Ends press conference after only five reporters out of approximately 30 had asked questions.]
  
  C&BP attempted to get an answer after the press conference before one of the two state troopers escorting Mr. Cuccinelli stopped C&BP from walking towards the Attorney General to ask the question.

•  
• The Virginia landowners who Mr. Cuccinelli has sided against have already asked him to give the money back and C&BP asked him again yesterday. He reacted by walking away from a press conference. Mr. Cuccinelli should answer the question - and clean up any potential conflicts of interest by returning campaign payments from Consol Energy and its subsidiaries, which are currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Virginia landowners.
  

• ---

• ------------------------------------------------------
• [1] Mr. Cuccinelli accepted more than $140,000 in Consol contributions after issuing an advisory opinion as Attorney General that limited the jurisdiction of Virginia Gas and Oil Board in June 2010.  That opinion marked the first of several Consol-friendly actions Mr. Cuccinelli has taken as Virginia's Attorney General. Two months later, in August 2010, Mr. Cuccinelli sided with Consol and against Virginians in a lawsuit to recover improperly withheld royalties. Finally, Mr. Cuccinelli, went to bat for Consol again earlier this year when he issued another advisory opinion that local jurisdictions in Virginia may not use zoning laws to establish a moratorium on fracking until they can be sure their water tables will not be polluted.

Are Ken Cuccinelli’s Ties to Big Energy Hurting Him In Southwest Virginia?

The highly unusual - and I would argue highly improper - intervention of Ken Cuccinelli's Attorney General office in private litigation by residents of southwest Virginia against oil and gas companies may be backfiring on Kookinelli.  While Kookinelli received over $100,000 from the parent company of one of the defendants accused of screwing landowners out of gas royalty payments, it seems that typically Republican voting residents of the region are not all that enamored with Kookinelli.  And rightfully so.  Think Progress looks at the current state of affairs in this backward, GOP voting region of Virginia. The piece also looks at "forced pooling" of leases and mineral rights to permit exploration and production - a practice that has existed in oil and gas producing states for many decades.  Here are exceprts:

In the 2012 elections, Republican Mitt Romney racked up a huge margin over President Barack Obama in the coal mining counties of southwest Virginia. But as Virginia’s inspector general investigates possible improper coordination between Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II’s (R) office and a coal and gas company that has given more than $100,000 to his campaign, a newly released poll suggests that southwest Virginians are far less enthusiastic about the 2013 Republican gubernatorial nominee than any other recent Republican candidate.

At an energy forum Thursday, Cuccinelli delivered a full-throated defense of Virginia’s coal industry and an attack on efforts by government to encourage renewable energy, saying, “government doesn’t pick winners, it picks losers at the taxpayer’s expense.” Despite his claim that he would fight for Virginia families who depend on coal, because he and his office have consistently sided with the companies over ordinary people and the environment, he has also been picking winners and losers.

[T]he most recent poll numbers show McAuliffe with a six point lead. And in one heavily Republican southwest Virginia district won by Romney by 20 points, a newly released Democratic internal poll finds Cuccinelli with just 47 percent support.

A Pulitzer-Prize-winning 2009 series by Daniel Gilbert in the Bristol Herald Courier detailed the problems with this system. With little oversight of the system, energy companies have underpaid the amounts the royalties they owed. The big coal companies, despite not having the gas rights, regularly dispute their ownership in hopes of forcing the landowners to agree to a 50-50 split on the royalties. Many of these landowners cannot afford the costly legal process needed to establish ownership in court and access the escrow funds — if they even know they are entitled to it.

After the stories, State Sen. Phil Puckett (D) authored a 2010 law aimed at reforming the system. Not long after, newly inaugurated Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion finding that the state’s regulatory board still had no new authority to resolve these royalty disputes, a big win for the companies who have continued the practice. Puckett, shocked at the “very disappointing” ruling, responded “I don’t know how you can make it any clearer than what the law says there.”

Cuccinelli would also side with the gas industry in a January 2013 advisory opinion opposing a southwest Virginia county’s attempt to use zoning laws to prohibit hydro-fracking. The fossil fuel industry has been among the most generous backers of Cuccinelli, whose father worked for 17 years for the American Gas Association and was a long-time executive for a natural gas company.

Cuccinelli’s senior assistant attorney general Sharon Pigeon intervened in the case to defend the constitutionality of the state law — but also coordinated with company lawyers on their strategy to oppose the class-action status. U.S. Magistrate Pamela Meade Sargent, after reading the email exchanges between Pigeon and the companies, called the assistant attorney general’s conduct shocking and referred the matter to the Virginia’s inspector general. Pigeon’s emails show she her advice to the companies included strategy on how to take advantage of a paperwork processing glitch to keep one landowner’s case out of court.

Terry McAuliffe, has highlighted the controversy in a series of campaign ads featuring local landowners accusing Cuccinelli of betraying southwest Virginia.   Asked after the energy forum about the Consol contributions, he [Cuccinelli] attempted to suggest that he had actually opposed the company’s interests, then stormed off without offering an explanation.

If Kookinelli doesn't do very well in Southwest Virginia, his chances of winning in November will not be good.   I hope residents of the region continue to figure out that Kookinelli is in fact their enemy.

Dozens of Improper E-mails Surface from Cuccinelli's Office to Gas Company

Yesterday I wrote about the growing scandal that Ken Cuccinelli is facing arising from his office's improper assistance to a gas company litigant in a lawsuit brought by Virginia landowners to recovery gas royalties.  As noted in that post, from my experience as a former in-house attorney to an oil company who is familiar with Virginia's Oil and Gas Act, there is no legitimate basis for the AG's office to have been assisting the gas company litigants.  Now, the Bristol Herald Courier is reporting that a slew of additional e-mails from one of Cuccinelli's assistant attorney generals assisting an oil and gas company owned by one of his biggest campaign contributors have surfaced.  The bottom line message to be learned is that Cuccinelli is lying about his involvement in what increasingly appears to be improper intervention in a private civil lawsuit in exchange for over $100,000 in cash contributions.  If Bob McDonnell has a problem with the feds, then Cuccinelli does as well, but even more so.  Here are highlights from the Herald Courier:

ABINGDON, Va. — Court records show that an assistant attorney general sent dozens of emails to lawyers representing the two energy companies now being sued in a federal class-action case over natural gas royalties in Southwest Virginia.

This is in addition to a series of five emails that came to light months ago, when a federal magistrate judge criticized the staffer for appearing to advise the lawyers on how to fight the lawsuits.

With the larger batch of emails, the magistrate judge eventually ruled that nearly half failed to meet the common-interest legal doctrine that state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli now insists allowed his staff member to ethically communicate with those lawyers.

Pigeon sent at least 52 emails to lawyers of defendants EQT Production and CNX Gas since the lawsuits were filed three years ago, reveals a Herald Courier review of court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Abingdon.

In June, the attorney general said his office joined the court cases only to fight constitutional challenges to the Virginia Gas and Oil Act, which is at the heart of a series of lawsuits seeking at least $28 million in natural gas royalties now held in state-mandated escrow accounts set up and monitored by the Gas and Oil Board.

Speculation over the relationship between the state’s highest legal office and corporate lawyers has become a political hot topic: Cuccinelli is the Republican candidate vying with Democrat Terry McAuliffe for the governor’s seat, up for grabs in November.

Adding to the fire is the role CNX parent company CONSOL Energy has as one of the top financial contributors to Cuccinelli’s campaign. The company has funneled $111,044 into his campaign coffers since 2012, according to campaign watchdog Virginia Public Access Project.

Last week, the state’s inspector general confirmed to the Herald Courier that his office is conducting an investigation of whether Pigeon wrongfully advised the energy company lawyers and said it could take months to wrap up.

As for Pigeon’s emails, it was early 2011 when the lawyers seeking the royalties on behalf of a group of Southwest Virginia landowners began to ask for her communications with the corporate attorneys.

Cuccinelli’s office fought the release [of the e-mails] and argued that the common-interest doctrine allows lawyers representing separate clients to trade information as long as they have similar interests.

U.S. Magistrate Pamela Meade Sargent wrote that none of the dozens of emails Pigeon traded with defense lawyers seemed to touch upon any constitutional issues.

Instead, Pigeon’s emails appear to have focused on such topics as the effect of a jury pool, judicial orders and other case issues, suggest references in court documents. She sent many of those emails months after a senior judge ruled on the constitutional challenges and after the attorney general’s office dropped out of the case.

 The AG’s office jumped back into the lawsuits only to fight the plaintiff’s request for the emails.

Something is clearly rotten in this picture.  Personally, from all my dealings with the Attorney General's office over the years, I find it hard to believe that Pigeon advised the gas companies without direction from above.  One can only hope that Pigeon will opt to not fail on her sword and will come clean about who was directing her to assist the gas company defendants.   If that happens, I suspect the feds will be opening an investigation of Cuccinelli.