Speaking publicly for the first time Friday about the numerous allegations made against his family’s businesses over the past week, Governor Jim Justice distanced himself from the family empire and reiterated his claim that the lawsuits were the result of political attacks against him and not real consequences for years of unpaid bills and fines.
With regard to a Legal application filed by the federal government this week to a court 23 Justice family coal companies to be found in contempt of court Justice said he was not involved in the companies’ dealings because he had failed to pay fines relating to health and safety regulations that were due for years.
“I’m not nearly as involved in the day-to-day operations, not nearly as much as you would think I would be in terms of knowing our business,” Justice said. “From time to time there are difficult times and stuff, but every time…if there’s a problem, it gets solved…We might be a few minutes late to the fire, but we’re always on the scene.”
In this case, “a few minutes late for the fire” seems to mean about ten years, since the unpaid fines date back to 2014, according to court records.
The memorandum A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia says Justice companies’ mines have been subject to “hundreds” of citations and orders since 2014 for violating the federal Mine Safety and Health Act and standards set by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The debt for these fines – which at one point totaled $5.13 million – was to be paid fully by MarchTo date, approximately $600,000 in fines remain unpaid.
Justice opened the press conference on Friday by honoring a miner who died on 5 August at a mine in Taylor County. The miner, 57-year-old Joe Crandall, is the third miner to die on the job in West Virginia in 2024. according to MSHA.
“In my eyes, we have lost a hero,” Justice said of Crandall at the beginning of the briefing.
Towards the end of the briefing, Justice used Crandall’s death to launch into a political tirade against energy policies that he said undermine the importance of coal mining and praised former President Donald Trump.
When asked on Friday whether his companies would pay the outstanding fines, the governor did not provide a direct answer.
The missing payments, the federal government’s lawyers said, have caused real harm. The unpaid health and safety violations, they wrote, are a means of forcing mine operators to work within the law and ensure that their employees work in protected conditions.
“[The companies’] “The continued evasion of their financial obligations under the Mining Act deprives these defendants – and other mining companies – of the incentive to comply with MSHA’s health and safety standards, which were created to protect the nation’s miners,” the memorandum states.
Regarding the family’s Greenbrier Hotel — the to be auctioned publicly later that month because the Justice family had defaulted on millions of dollars in bank loans – Justice said executives at JPMorgan were seeking foreclosure for political reasons.
“This borders on extortion,” Justice said of the bank’s move to auction off the hotel to recoup some of the $9.4 million it still owes the Justice family in loans.
Justice is currently running a Republican campaign for the U.S. Senate and is considered the clear favorite to win in this deep-red state.
“This is all about Jim Justice being the one to flip the United States Senate,” Justice told reporters at his weekly press conference Friday. “It’s about twisting or damaging Jim Justice from a political perspective, there’s no doubt at all that it’s about anything else.”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has loudly defended former President Donald Trump and his supporters against criticism from Democrats. Trump told reporters last month that if elected in November, he Consider Dimon to serve as U.S. Treasury Secretary.
