Weekly West Virginia “Battle Royale” Senate Primary Update

Mounting legal troubles, Mooney attacks on Justice’s record as Governor and questions about Justice’s conflicts of interest: here’s what you might have missed this week in West Virginia’s “messy,” “costly,” and “bruising” GOP primary.

• “There are more legal troubles for West Virginia Governor Jim Justice as he seeks the Republican Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate.” New reporting details a new lawsuit over a Justice-owned business that “still owes $1.75 million in workers’ compensation payments.”
  

• Mooney called Justice a “RINO” who “doesn’t care about lowering costs,” and raised taxes on West Virginians. Mooney doubled down on his assertion that he is “the only true conservative in this race,” citing a Fox News report detailing that Justice “urge[d] Republicans to ‘swallow’ unrelated spending” from COVID-19 relief legislation. 

• A new column from the Weirton Daily Times raises questions about Justice using the Governor’s office to benefit projects he has financial interests in.  Although Justice vowed to place his businesses in blind trusts when he became Governor — a move that “would protect him against real and perceived conflicts of interest” — Justice “refuses” to do so: he has only put a handful over his 110+ businesses in a blind trust to this day. 

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