Joe Manchin just unveiled his campaign staff, and the name atop the list really jumps off the page. Joe Manchin’s Senior Advisor is none other than Larry Puccio, his partner in the shady hotel deal he continues to lie about, and a lobbyist for Mylan. That’s right! Joe Manchin’s campaign is literally being run by the lobbyist for an opioid manufacturer!
Manchin’s hiring of Puccio shows that he no longer cares enough to even pretend that he isn’t in the pocket of Big Pharma. And why should he? Everyone already knows that Mylan, the embattled Fentanyl manufacturer that recently settled with the Department of Justice for $465 million for ripping off taxpayers, is his second biggest campaign contributor. And that his daughter, opioid pusher Heather Bresch, is the CEO of Mylan. And that his wife, West Virginia Secretary of Education Gayle Manchin, led the charge to require schools to stock Mylan’s products. At least when West Virginians fire Manchin next November he’ll have a cushy job waiting for him at Mylan!
“Joe Manchin’s hiring of a Mylan lobbyist to run his campaign proves just how out of touch he is with West Virginia,” said NRSC Spokesman Bob Salera. “The fact that Manchin would hire the lobbyist for a fentanyl manufacturer to run his reelection campaign, at a time when the state is grappling with a devastating opioid epidemic, is a clear illustration that Manchin does not represent West Virginians.”
