“Painkiller” and Virginia

“Painkiller” is one of the hottest shows on Netflix as it shows how greed and political influence allowed hundreds of thousands of young men and women to die of opioid overdoses. It also involves a case currently pending before the United States Supreme Court. But did you know the relationship that Virginia’s Democrat Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have to it? In the late 1990’s the Mafia was looking for a place to ship its New York and New Jersey hazardous waste. It found an easy target in Page County, Virginia, and its Board of Supervisors. But by the early 2000’s, the FBI was investigating the corrupted Battle Creek Landfill. In January of 2001, George W. Bush was inaugurated and the Mafia came up with a brilliant plan—sell the landfill and its millions of dollars in revenue to the new President’s favorite brother, Marvin. 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/8/10/137299/-

President Bush could provide interference with the FBI, but what about Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality? That Marvin arranged by having Mark Warner, elected in November 2001, appoint as his very first agency head, Robert Burnley, the very guy running the Battle Creek Landfill. Marvin’s deal closed with Bush’s company the very same day. More on the story here.

How does this relate to Netflix’s “Painkiller”? Turns out that President Bush didn’t have the control over the federal criminal justice system as Marvin had hoped. United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia John Brownlee, an ambitious young politician played in “Painkiller” by Tyler Ritter, was using a number of Federal agencies to investigate the Page County corruption in his District, and he didn’t care that a target was the brother of the President who appointed him. 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2005/10/12/156122/-

So, the above gives a rough outline of how Warner was involved. How was Kaine involved? Kaine was actually clean at the time. He heard about the corruption and even held a press conference on the steps of the State Capitol railing against it. Lots happened between 2001 and 2005 and books have been written about it. 

But Kaine kept quiet about Warner’s key role.

How did it end without Marvin and Mark ending up in prison? In 2005, the Bush White House (and surely Warner) were desperate. Target letters had gone out, including to the former Chairman of the Page County Board of Supervisors, then member of the Virginia House of Delegates Allen Louderback, who announced he was not running for re-election. (And Louderback wasn’t voluntarily retiring from politics. He has since returned to the Page County Board of Supervisors.) 

The White House finally convinced Brownlee to back off by giving him a $100 Million case against ITT Corporation for illegally exporting secret military data to China, Establishment backing for his impending run for the Republican nomination for Attorney General of Virginia, and the Purdue Pharma case, defended by Rudy Guliani, featured in “Painkiller”, and now the subject of a case pending before the United States Supreme Court. 

So, but for Warner’s involvement and Kaine’s covering up of it, Brownlee never would have had the opportunity to sell out to Purdue Pharma, and Netflix’s “Painkiller” wouldn’t have spent hours showing how hundreds of thousands of young men and women died because of it since 2005.