Today's Wheeling "newspapers" bring us the news that former West Liberty University president Robin Capehart has a new job as the lead counsel to the West Virginia Senate Committee on Finance. Capehart, who has been a long-time Ogden favorite (including a rare front page editorial supporting his West Liberty candidacy), held that support right up until the day he was forced to resign because of ethics violations. The "favorite" status continues; we are told that

(h)e resigned as WLU president in March 2015 amid ethics complaints he utilized school resources to help promote a film he produced.

These weren't "complaints" -- there were 13 charges by the state against him. Today's papers don't elaborate, but here is how the Charleston Gazette described one of the state's charges against him:

In January, the commission’s Probable Cause Review Board issued 13 charges against Capehart, including that he put Siebert on the university’s payroll beginning in January 2010, first as a temporary employee producing a TV show for the university’s cable-access TV station, WLTV, at $250 per episode, and subsequently made her part-time business manager for the TV station, at $2,000 a month, and in July 2011 retained her as a consultant for the university, at $4,000 a month.

During much of that time, Siebert was also working for Capehart’s film company. . . .

[Capehart] called the charges “frivolous and thoroughly refuted,” and said he would be releasing affidavits that would exonerate him.

He never did provide any affidavits, and in March, resigned as West Liberty president, under an agreement that allows him to continue to draw his $200,000 salary while serving as a consultant and lobbyist for the university through the end of the year.

How could the Republicans hire a man with a major ethics violation to be lead counsel to the Senate Finance Committee? That's easy, as today's papers tell us, you ignore the evidence:

Finance Committee Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, made the announcement of Capehart’s appointment as counsel on Tuesday. He said he reviewed the ethics complaints against Capehart and “found not one to be substantiated.”

Maybe Blair could explain this: