CHARLESTON, WV—House Majority Leader Pat McGeehan issued a sharp defense of Delegate Ian Masters following accusations made this week by Delegates Mike Pushkin and Evan Hansen, calling the claims “false, sordid, and malevolently calculated.”

“I’ve known Ian Masters for some two decades,” said Delegate McGeehan. “I don’t need anything more than Ian Master’s word to know he didn’t make the comment that is being used to unjustly attack him.”

The recent so-called controversy involves an infrequently used Instagram account associated with Delegate Ian Masters, where a comment by the account appeared over this past weekend, triggering Democrats Mike Pushkin and Evan Hansen to brand Delegate Ian Masters as an antisemite. But Delegate Ian Masters has provided a screenshot from this account, demonstrating irregular activity. Beyond this, there is definitive proof he was not using this account recently, he was oblivious to any recent comments made by the account, and further, the person responsible has been identified—someone with no current relation to him and his district, or anyone else in the WV Republican Party.

McGeehan continued: “Democrats Pushkin and Hansen are not interested in the truth. They make these deceptive accusations because they desire power and social status at the expense of others.”

Pushkin chairs the West Virginia Democratic Party and is actively suing over the seat that Delegate Ian Masters was appointed to fill, after it was vacated by the previous delegate-elect, who was arrested this past winter for threatening to murder several state delegates. “One feature that comes with playing a professional victim is constant manipulation. Ian Masters has strong character and cannot be manipulated,” McGeehan said. “Fanatics such as Democrat Mike Pushkin resent this kind of strong character, real virtue, and genuine integrity. Resentment drives the Democrat Mike Pushkin’s of the world to justify any means—including demented efforts to damage the reputations of good people like Ian Masters—to gain status and power. I’m quite sure the good people of our state can see right through it.”