Last year, a Wheeling Intelligencer editorial praised the work of one of its favorites, WV Secretary of State Mac Warner, telling us how well-regarded Warner was supposedly among his peers:

Secretary of State Mac Warner is so well regarded in that field that he testified Thursday before Congress about the security and confidence we have in our state’s elections.

Not mentioned in the editorial was the fact that this committee appeared to be a very partisan Republican committee looking for a Biden election denier. As WV Public Broadcasting described in its coverage:

Warner also echoed allegations from House Republicans like Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who claim that federal intelligence agencies misinformed the public about the Hunter Biden laptop controversy during the 2020 presidential campaign.

In the meantime, if you have other sources for your news beyond the Wheeling Intelligencer, you are probably aware that Alexander Smirnov, the major player in Republican efforts to impeach President Biden over Hunter Biden, was recently arrested:

The indictment brought by David Weiss, the same special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, alleges that Alexander Smirnov, an informant with ties to Russian intelligence, fabricated the claims of bribery on which the House based the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. https://t.co/H1gTb8XMDi

— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) February 21, 2024

Earlier today, I looked but could not find any reaction from Mac Warner to Smirnov’s indictment. What I did find, however, was that Warner's fellow secretaries of state recently reacted to his continuing to push conspiracy theories. From Kevin Collier, yesterday, at NBC News:

The National Association of Secretaries of State Winter Conference is usually a cordial affair. It’s one of two occasions every year in which top election officials from most states gather to commiserate and share nonpartisan advice. But at this year’s conference, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner drew rare groans from the crowd.

During the question-and-answer portion of a cybersecurity panel, which included senior officials from the FBI and Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Warner stepped up to the mic. “In October of 2020, the CIA lied to the American people on purpose and it was covered up by the FBI,” he said. “We have our own federal agencies lying to the American people.”

The panel thanked Warner tersely and moved on to another question. . . . The remarks have solidified him among his colleagues as the only sitting election director in the country to openly embrace the election denialism that former President Donald Trump has used to explain his 2020 loss.

So, West Virginia's Mac Warner is America’s only election-denying secretary of state. Okay, that probably means that Ogden’s next Warner-praising editorial will likely describe him as “one of a kind” instead of “well regarded.”