Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s inaugural committee donated $125,000 to a mysterious nonprofit organization.
In late March, the inaugural committee made the donation to the 1925 Fund, Inc., according to the committee’s financial statement filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State.
The 1925 Fund Inc. has no website. Its incorporation papers list an office building in downtown Charleston. However, there’s no name for it in the lobby directory.
Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Morrisey, said the donation is “outside the purview of the governor’s office.”
Inaugural committee co-chair Conrad Lucas said he wasn’t sure about the nature of the organization. He referred the matter to an attorney at a D.C.-area law firm and a political consultant who have worked for Morrisey in the past.
Scott Will, the political consultant, did not respond to a call or email. He ran Morrisey’s 2012 campaign for attorney general and advised an outside group which supported the governor in the Republican primary last year.
Lawyers with Dickinson Wright, a D.C. law firm that works with Republican campaigns throughout the country, filled out the paperwork to incorporate the organization. The Morrisey campaign has used the firm since 2020.
“The 1925 Fund is a nonprofit organization established to further the common good and general welfare for the people of West Virginia,” Sloane Carlough, an attorney at the firm, wrote in an email.
Bulldog Compliance, a Massachusetts-based political firm, is listed as the organization handling mail for the 1925 Fund on the inaugural committee report.
That company is owned by Bradley Crate, who has also acted as a compliance consultant and treasurer for the inaugural committee, Morrisey’s gubernatorial campaign and a handful of other candidates in the state.
Crate did not return a request for comment via email and phone.
Help us report on the 1925 Fund. Reach out to reporter Henry Culvyhouse at henry@mountainstatespotlight.org or (304) 220-6076.
Under West Virginia law, an inaugural committee can donate its excess funds to a charitable, cultural or educational organization. Or it can donate money to the Governor’s Mansion Fund, which helps with renovations and updates to the mansion.
The governor’s mansion was built in 1925, but the name of the fund appears to be entirely coincidental, according to a spokesperson with the state auditor’s office. The Governor’s Mansion Fund currently has $0 and there’s been no transactions on file with the 1925 Fund Inc., said Hayden Erwin, a spokesperson for the Auditor’s office.
Plus, if an inaugural committee makes a donation to the mansion fund, it would do so directly, according to Landon Palmer, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office.
The 1925 Fund was set up as a type of nonprofit organization that can lobby and engage in political activities. In recent years, this type of nonprofit has become a source of “dark money” in politics, because donors are not publicly disclosed. This type of organization can also donate to Super Political Action Committees, without their own donors being identified.
The Secretary of State’s office said state law doesn’t preclude inaugural committees from donating to such an organization.