During the past two years, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has repeatedly said he played no part in his office's lawsuit against prescription drug giant Cardinal Health, a company his wife lobbies for in Washington, D.C.
That's what he told the public. That's what he asserted in a court of law.
But that's not what he told a state lawyer disciplinary board that investigated him.
After repeated denials, Morrisey recently acknowledged he didn't "permanently screen" himself from the Cardinal Health case until July 2013, seven months after he took office after ousting longtime Attorney General Darrell McGraw, according to testimony Morrisey gave to the Lawyer Disciplinary Board's investigative panel.
That's the same month the Charleston Gazette first reported on Morrisey's ties to Cardinal Health.
At the time - and on multiple occasions since then - Morrisey insisted he stepped aside from the lawsuit after winning the election.
The lawyer disciplinary panel concluded that Morrisey's role in the Cardinal Health lawsuit wasn't "substantive," but that he did take part.
"[Morrisey] made public statements that he stepped aside from the Cardinal Health case after taking office in January [2013]...but he doesn't deny he had some involvement with the case before his decision to screen himself entirely from the case in July 2013," wrote Robby Aliff, chairman of the investigative panel, in an order released Friday.
Morrisey spokesman Curtis Johnson denied that his boss misled anyone.
"Such characterizations are incorrect, and such assertions have been discredited," Johnson said.
Since Morrisey took office, his wife's firm, Capitol Counsel, has received $1.47 million from Cardinal Health for lobby work in Washington.
In statements to the investigative panel, Morrisey also revealed for the first time that he represented Cardinal Health on legal matters before being elected attorney general in West Virginia.
During 2013, the panel found that Morrisey asked that a court hearing about the Cardinal Health case be rescheduled because he couldn't attend.
Morrisey also "provided directions" to former chief deputy Dan Greear - who was assigned to manage the case for the office - about how to supervise outside lawyers hired to help the attorney general with the lawsuit, according to evidence cited by the panel.
Morrisey also attended a closed-door meeting with Cardinal Health lawyers to talk about the company's "substance abuse strategies" in May 2013, the investigative panel found - all at a time Morrisey would later publicly state he had recused himself from the lawsuit.
Morrisey's explanation? He told the investigative panel that he took part in the lawsuit before the "permanent screen" in July to "better evaluate any potential conflicts that could arise if he ultimately decided to manage the [Cardinal Health] case."
The panel also interviewed Greear, who testified that Morrisey never pushed him "in a certain way" on the Cardinal Health lawsuit. The panel found "no clear evidence that Morrisey was ever involved with the Cardinal Health litigation in a substantive way."
After the Gazette reported on Morrisey's ties to Cardinal Health in 2013, Morrisey told the investigative panel he asked his office's technology department to "implement an electronic wall" to screen him from the case. His office later adopted a conflict of interest policy that dictates "formal screening procedures."
Greear told the panel Morrisey "abided by the permanent screen" on the Cardinal case after July 2013.
The Lawyer Disciplinary Board dismissed an ethics complaint against Morrisey last month, ending the panel's investigation.
The Cardinal Health lawsuit, which Morrisey inherited from McGraw, alleges that Cardinal Health helped fuel Southern West Virginia's problem with prescription drugs by shipping an excessive number of pain pills to the region. Cardinal Health is the nation's second-largest prescription drug distributor. The case has dragged on for more than three years with few developments.
In response to the newspaper's reports in July 2013, Morrisey released a statement saying he stepped aside from the Cardinal Health lawsuit "earlier this year" and assigned Greear to manage the case in January 2013.
In the statement, Morrisey indicated that his wife's longtime work for Cardinal Health didn't prompt his decision to step aside from the lawsuit. Instead, Morrisey alleged that McGraw implied to him at a 2012 parade that McGraw filed the Cardinal Health lawsuit to retaliate against Morrisey's campaign.
"While McGraw's statements disturbed me greatly and led me to believe that at least some part of that case was politically motivated, after I took office I decided that, not withstanding McGraw's comments, West Virginians deserved the case to be decided on the merits," Morrisey said in the July 2013 statement.
He continued: "While not required under the law, because of McGraw's ethically problematic comments, earlier this year, I recused myself from the litigation as it pertains to Cardinal Health."
McGraw has said he never spoke to Morrisey about Cardinal Health or the lawsuit.
The Gazette later requested documents about Morrisey's decision to distance himself from the Cardinal Health lawsuit. Morrisey responded that he recused himself "orally" - not in writing.
Morrisey later reiterated that he withdrew from the Cardinal Health lawsuit after he took office.
At a town-hall meeting in Martinsburg in December 2014, Morgan County USA reporter Russell Mokhiber asked Morrisey when he stepped aside from the Cardinal Health lawsuit.
Morrisey responded: "Right, so I said I have not been involved in that case from the beginning of the year."
In January 2014, a Gazette reporter asked the same question at The Associated Press Legislative Lookahead event in South Charleston.
Morrisey said: "So I've said I wasn't involved. I wasn't involved in this case. I've said that all along."
Last year, the Charleston Gazette filed a lawsuit against the attorney general after he refused to release records that could shed light on his role in the Cardinal Health lawsuit.
Morrisey fought the release of emails and other documents, alleging that they didn't show he was involved in any matters related to the Cardinal Health lawsuit. Morrisey repeated that assertion, through former General Counsel Misha Tseytlin, in numerous court filings over the past year, saying "no such information exists." The lawyer disciplinary cited some of the same documents as evidence that Morrisey did take part in the Cardinal Health litigation, though not in a "substantive way."
In several filings, Morrisey told the court he consulted with a private lawyer about whether the Cardinal Health lawsuit presented a conflict in the spring of 2013, but only because he wanted to know if he could take part in the case "in the future" - even though records would later reveal that he already was involved at the time.
Kanawha Circuit Judge Charles King sided with Morrisey, ruling he didn't have to release the emails and other documents.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.