The National Republican Senatorial Committee is condemning the Justice Department for filing suit against Gov. Jim Justice’s (R-WV) coal empire over “unpaid civil penalties.”
The civil action, filed by the DOJ on Wednesday, comes as Justice continues to dominate general election polls in his race against Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Justice is the Democrat-turned-Republican West Virginia governor who boasts impressively high approval ratings. His family business oversees an empire of coal mines, processing facilities, agricultural companies, and the landmark Greenbrier resort in his home state. The Justice family businesses, as well as the governor and his children, have faced increased scrutiny over their nearly $1 billion in debt since entering the race to unseat Manchin.
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“Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has gone totally rogue,” NRSC spokesman Tate Mitchell said in a statement. “Democrats weaponizing the federal government to attack the family of a Republican Senate candidate is a complete abuse of power.”
The 128-page suit against the Justices and 13 of their coal companies alleges “over 130 violations of federal law, thereby posing health and safety risks to the public and the environment,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said in a statement on the charges Wednesday.
“Our environmental laws serve to protect communities against adverse effects of industrial activities including surface coal mining operations,” Kim, who works for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said. “Through this suit, the Justice Department seeks to deliver accountability for defendants’ repeated violations of the law and to recover the penalties they owe as a result of those violations.”
Described as the state’s richest man, Justice’s net worth rose to its highest point in 2009, when he was valued at $1.7 billion after selling Bluestone Resources Inc., the company that oversees the family’s coal operations, to Mechel PAO, a Russian coal producer, for more than $400 million in cash and several hundred million dollars in stock options. The deal was estimated to be worth over $1.5 billion. The value of his vast fortune plummeted, however, after Justice bought back Bluestone in 2015 for just $5 million plus royalty payments on future coal sales.
Despite the price drop, buying back Bluestone appeared to be the beginning of Justice’s financial woes. The firm was a money pit, facing scores of lawsuits that continue to damage the company’s overall financial position. While coal prices rebounded early last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, it has not been enough to revive the firm.
Making matters more difficult for Justice is the $850 million in personally-backed loans he and his children took out from Greensill Capital, which collapsed in early 2021. Justice and his children, whom he handed control of the family companies over to upon taking office as governor, have been in dispute with Credit Suisse Group AG, Grensill’s main financing partner, over paying back the sum since the firm went under.
They struck a repayment agreement last summer that would have Justice pay back as much as $320 million in installments from cash generated through Bluestone. The deal reduced how much Justice would be responsible for paying back from $850 million to $620 million.
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Justice has said he turned to Greensill for help with rebuilding the company and described the debt in June of 2021 as “a burden on our family beyond belief, and we’ll have to deal with it. It’s tough. It is really tough.”
He has also denied any wrongdoing by him or his companies, saying “we didn’t have one earthly clue” of the problems that would emerge from borrowing so much from Greensill.
Read More: NRSC slams Department of Justice suit against Jim Justice: ‘Totally rogue’