Tag: Don Blankenship

Senate Leader Gets No Support from 3 Warring GOP Candidates

Three Republican Senate candidates took turns going after one another in a nationally televised debate, with Rep. Evan Jenkins accusing state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of bringing “New Jersey values” to West Virginia, and Morrisey deriding Jenkins’ past as a Democrat.

And neither Jenkins, Morrisey nor former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship expressed support for the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

A week before the state’s primary election, the three candidates took part in one of the most contentious debates among several held recently across the state.

Morrisey accused Jenkins of having a liberal background and said his past stint as a Democrat should make voters wary. After switching to the Republican Party, Jenkins defeated 19-term Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall in 2014.

Jenkins pointed out this is not Morrisey’s first attempt at running for Congress, noting a failed 2000 attempt in his native New Jersey and a Morrisey campaign advertisement saying he’d fight anyone who goes against New Jersey values.

“You know what? We need somebody representing our values,” Jenkins said. “People need to be coming to West Virginia for the right reasons.”

Morrisey replied, “West Virginians wants someone with conservative values.”

Quizzed about his home near Las Vegas, Blankenship said he probably pays “more taxes than anybody on this stage to West Virginia.”

Blankenship served a year in federal prison for a misdemeanor conviction related to the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 men in southern West Virginia.

When asked about Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference, Blankenship, who has maintained his own innocence, provoked the loudest laugh of the night.

“You know, I’ve had a little personal experience with the Department of Justice,” he said. “They lie a lot, too.”

Three other trailing GOP candidates weren’t invited to Tuesday’s debate on Fox News.

When asked whether they would support McConnell as Senate majority leader, none of the candidates raised their hands — Blankenship ducked behind the podium.

Blankenship is at odds with McConnell, who he says is “spending millions to defeat me.” Earlier Tuesday, Blankenship’s campaign released a statement attacking McConnell.

The statement referred to a 2014 magazine article alleging that drugs were found aboard a commercial cargo ship owned by the family of McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. The statement referred to McConnell as “Cocaine Mitch,” though the allegation didn’t directly involve the senator.

McConnell’s office referred questions to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Calls to the NRSC went unanswered Tuesday night.

National GOP forces are believed to be behind the Mountain Families PAC, an organization created in March that has invested more than $700,000 attacking Blankenship on television. A spokesman for the Senate GOP’s most powerful super PAC has declined to confirm or deny a connection to the group.

Ex-Con Candidate Compounding GOP Woes in West Virginia

Republican Don Blankenship doesn't care if his party and his president don't think he can beat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin this fall.This former coal…

Republican Don Blankenship doesn’t care if his party and his president don’t think he can beat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin this fall.

This former coal mining executive, an ex-convict released from prison less than a year ago, is willing to risk his personal fortune and the GOP’s golden opportunity in West Virginia for the chance to prove them all wrong.

“I’ll get elected on my own merits,” Blankenship says.

There aren’t a lot of things that can sink Republicans’ hopes in the ruby red state that Donald Trump won by 42 percentage points in 2016, but Blankenship could well be one.

His candidacy is sending shudders down the spines of Republicans who are furiously working to ensure he is not their choice to take on Manchin in November. While Blankenship’s bid is a long shot, he’s testing whether a party led by an anti-establishment outsider can rein in its anti-establishment impulses.

“The establishment, no matter who you define it as, has not been creating jobs in West Virginia,” Blankenship said at a primary debate this past week.

Even before Blankenship emerged as a legitimate Republican candidate, West Virginia was a worry for some Republicans.

Former Gov. Manchin has held elected office in West Virginia for the better part of the past three decades, and he’s worked hard to cozy up to Trump and nurture a bipartisan brand.

He has voted with the Republican president more than he has opposed him, his office says, noting that the senator and Trump have collaborated on trade, environmental rules, gun violence and court nominations.

The alignment with Trump was so effective that former White House adviser Steve Bannon worried privately to colleagues that Trump might actually endorse the Democrat. An outright endorsement now is unlikely, but a Blankenship primary victory on May 8 could push Trump to help Manchin, at least indirectly, by ignoring West Virginia this fall.

The state has long been considered a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans, who hold a two-seat Senate majority that suddenly feels less secure given signs of Democratic momentum in Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and elsewhere. If Democrats can win West Virginia, which gave Trump his largest margin of victory in the nation, they may have a slim chance at seizing the Senate majority.

Some of Trump’s most prominent conservative supporters, particularly those in Bannon’s network, have rallied behind state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a former Capitol Hill aide who was raised in New Jersey but has served as West Virginia’s top lawyer since 2013.

Rep. Evan Jenkins, a former Democrat, has highlighted his West Virginia roots and deep allegiance to Trump. Jenkins noted that Manchin missed a big chance to align himself with Trump on key issues such as taxes and health care.

“The president gave Joe Manchin every opportunity in the early weeks and months of his administration to vote the right way,” Jenkins said in an interview. “He voted wrong.”

But in interviews this past week, Morrisey and Jenkins declined to attack Blankenship for his role in the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster, the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades, killing 29 men. Blankenship led the company that owned the mine and was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to break safety laws, a misdemeanor.

Raising that dark history has been left to the national GOP forces believed to be behind the Mountain Families PAC, an organization created last month that has invested more than $700,000 attacking Blankenship on television. A spokesman for the Senate GOP’s most powerful super PAC declined to confirm or deny a connection to the group.

Trump has done his part to hurt Blankenship’s chances as well.

The president excluded Blankenship from a recent West Virginia stop, where Trump appeared with Jenkins on one side and Morrisey on the other. And Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who leads the Senate GOP’s national campaign efforts, had this to say to reporters when asked about Blankenship last week: “Do they let ankle bracelets get out of the house?”

For voters, Blankenship remains a deeply polarizing figure.

Blankenship calls himself a West Virginian but had his supervised release transferred last August to federal officials in Nevada, where he has a six-bedroom home with his fiancee 20 miles from Las Vegas, in Henderson.

“It’s a friendly place and I like it,” said Blankenship, whose supervised release ends May 9, the day after the primary.

Blankenship recently drew attention for comments on a radio show about the father of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Blankenship said he believed McConnell has a conflict of interest in foreign relations matters, in particular those dealing with China. Chao’s father was born in China and started an international shipping company in New York.

According to media reports, Blankenship’s fiancee also was born in China.

“I don’t have any problem with Chinese people, Chinese girlfriend, Chinese anything,” Blankenship told the radio station. “But I have an issue when the father-in-law is a wealthy Chinaperson and has a lot of connections with some of the brass, if you will, in China.”

Stanley Stewart, a retired miner who was inside the Upper Big Branch mine when it blew up in 2010, calls Blankenship ‘ruthless, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, self-centered.”

“I feel that if anybody voted for Don Blankenship, they may as well stick a knife in their back and twist it, because that’s exactly what he’ll do,” Stewart said in an interview.

But there is skepticism that Blankenship was treated fairly by the courts. Blankenship has cast himself as a victim of an overbearing Obama administration, an argument that resonates with many white working-class voters on the ground here. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court last October left in place his conviction when the justices declined to take up his case.

“What they’ve said he’s actually done (in the criminal case), I don’t believe none of that,” 21-year-old coal mechanic Zack Ball said while grabbing a bite to eat in the Boone County coal community of Danville. “Don Blankenship all the way.”

Inside a Whitesville pizza shop a few miles north of the shuttered Upper Big Branch mine, retiree Debbie Pauley said Blankenship “was railroaded” at his trial.

“I think that Blankenship does have integrity,” she said. “I don’t think he’d put up with any crap.”

Manchin Builds Fundraising Lead in West Virginia Senate Race

Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin has built a significant fundraising chest in his bid for a second full six-year term, far outpacing West Virginia Republicans hoping to defeat him this fall.

Manchin’s campaign has raised $4.5 million since the start of 2017 and had $5.4 million in cash on hand at the end of March, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

A former governor, Manchin reported $3.1 million in individual contributions and $1.4 million from other committees over the past 15 months.

Manchin’s campaign said in a statement it has raised more than $935,000 in the first three months this year. Campaign spokesman Grant Herring said the campaign has more than 11,000 donors.

“The numbers don’t lie: Senator Manchin has strong grassroots support from all over West Virginia,” Herring said in the statement.

Manchin faces Paula Jean Swearengin in the May 8 Democratic primary. Swearengin reports raising $179,000 and has $54,000 cash on hand.

Among the six candidates in the GOP Senate primary, former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship has self-funded his campaign with $2 million in loans.

According to his filing, he’s received a single $1,000 individual donation since announcing his candidacy late last year. Blankenship had $214,000 cash on hand at the end of March.

Blankenship, who served a year in prison for a misdemeanor conviction related to the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 men, has flooded the airwaves promoting his campaign, touting his dedication to mine safety and criticizing the Senate candidacies of U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

Jenkins and Morrisey have raised more than $1.4 million apiece, and each has about $1.3 million cash on hand. Morrisey has loaned his campaign $320,000.

The FEC had no campaign finance reports listed for the other GOP candidates, including truck driver Jack Newbrough of Weirton, West Virginia National Guard Maj. Tom Willis and Bo Copley of Lenore, a laid-off coal miner who confronted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 over her remarks about cutting mining jobs.

Booth Goodwin, a Democrat and former federal prosecutor whose office oversaw Blankenship’s prosecution, is listed in federal filings as the treasurer of super political action committee Duty and Country, which took out more than $626,000 in television ads against Jenkins and Morrisey.

Another super PAC, Arlington, Virginia-based Mountain Families PAC, reported spending $744,000 for television ads attacking Blankenship’s environmental record. Mountain Families’ treasurer is Ben Ottenhoff, a former Republican National Committee chief financial officer.

In the open U.S. House race for Jenkins’ 3rd District seat, state Delegate Carol Miller led five other GOP candidates with $252,000 raised plus $275,000 in loans, including $200,000 she loaned herself. She has $302,000 on hand. Former state GOP chairman Conrad Lucas raised $143,000 and loaned his campaign $95,500. He has $181,000 on hand.

Among 3rd District Democrats, state Sen. Richard Ojeda has far outpaced his competitors, raising $157,000 with $68,000 on hand.

In the 1st District Democratic primary, retired CEO Ralph Baxter of Wheeling leads three candidates with $404,000 raised. He has loaned his campaign $200,000 and has $429,000 on hand.

Democrat Aaron Scheinberg has raised $486,000 in his 2nd District campaign and has $265,000 on hand. Former Hillary Clinton state presidential campaign director Talley Sergent has raised $241,000 and has $170,000 on hand.

Congressmen David McKinley and Alex Mooney are unopposed in the GOP primary in the 1st and 2nd Districts, respectively.

 

Wesleyan Students Try To Predict W.Va. Primary

The upcoming senate race in West Virginia has drawn a big crowd of Republican contenders who are vying to face off on May 8 in the primary races. They’re competing for the Senate seat currently held by Joe Manchin, the long standing Democratic incumbent. A group of college students in a political science course at West Virginia Wesleyan College recently made their predictions for which Republicans they think will come out ahead in the primary senate race.

“We think it’s gonna be a really close race, mostly between Jenkins and Morrisey,” said 21-year-old Fairmont native, Hannah McCoy. She worked with a team of fellow students to research the senate race. Their final assignment is to predict which candidates will come out ahead.

 

“The polls aren’t very consistent right now. But what is consistent is there’s a lot of undecided voters. There’s at least 20 percent undecided voters in all five polls that we looked at.”

 

The paper McCoy and her classmates wrote is for a political science class, taught by political analyst Robert Rupp. They explored voting habits of West Virginians, and how social issues affect politics in the state.

 

Baltimore-native Katie Kennedy observed how politics in West Virginia play out very differently than what she’s seen in Maryland.

 

“We learned about the idea of personalism,” Kennedy said, “and how West Virginians don’t really rely on your credentials or your background in politics. They rely on the word of one another.”

 

“Family is another value that we looked at in West Virginia, and Jenkins highlights his wife and kids in all of his ads,” she added.

 

The students also considered how current events might affect voters this year.

 

“It’s really gonna come down to West Virginia values, the drug epidemic, and the West Virginia teachers’ strike, where Morrisey said that he would help to arrest the teachers and Jenkins publicly supported them. We think that will be a game changer between the two,” said McCoy.

 

This first group of students, made up entirely of young women, predicts that Jenkins will come out first, Morrisey second. The second group, comprised solely of young men, predicts that Don Blankenship will actually come in ahead of Morrisey.

 

“He flooded a lot of money into his campaign. He has a good campaign manager that’s well received in the state of West Virginia,” said Tyler Broadwater, one of the students in the all-male group. “And he has a lot of his own financial resources to put into the campaign.”

 

Broadwater’s team agree with the first group that Jenkins will likely win the primary. But they think Blankenship has gained a good bit of ground in the last few weeks.

 

“Initially we started out looking at different polls. And we initially found out that there weren’t a lot of polls that were done. And then, there were even fewer polls that were being done by nonpartisan groups. For example, we saw some polls that showed Jenkins highly favored, early on. But the polls that had Jenkins significantly ahead, we did a little bit of research and found that the polls that were being done were sponsored by Jenkins’ backers.”

 

This group also looked at how the Teachers’ Strike might influence this race, said Lawrence Rebelo. “Because even though they were supporting the Democratic party, this is still Trump Country. So they may vote for some Dems, but when it comes down to it, I think they’ll vote for Jenkins. Maybe, half of them, at least.”

 

Rebelo, who grew up in Preston County, admits that he’s a strong Democrat. But he was surprised to learn some things about the Republican candidates, including that Jenkins publicly supported the teachers.

 

His classmate, Broadwater, said the project has made him realize how important it is to do research before deciding how to cast your vote.

 

“I think this class has taught us a little bit about, not being skeptical, but  understanding where the information’s coming from. And especially who pays for that information.”

 

Motion Seeks to Erase Ex-Massey CEO Blankenship's Conviction

Attorneys for former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship are seeking to erase his misdemeanor conviction related to the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades. A former lead prosecutor called it a desperate act.

A motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Charleston claims federal prosecutors withheld information that would have assisted in Blankenship’s defense at his lengthy 2015 trial. It said the government produced reports and other information after the trial’s completion.

Blankenship, who has long maintained he didn’t get a fair trial, served one year in prison for a misdemeanor conviction related to the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia.

Blankenship assembled a new legal team for the latest court filing, which said evidence withheld by prosecutors until after trial “would have tipped the balance in Mr. Blankenship’s favor.”

The motion, which seeks an evidentiary hearing, was announced by Blankenship through his U.S. Senate campaign. He’s running as a Republican in the May 8 primary in West Virginia.

Former assistant U.S. attorney Steve Ruby, who was the lead prosecutor at the trial, said in an email to The Associated Press that the motion is “clearly a political Hail Mary. He’s three weeks from an election, and it sounds like he’s behind in the polls. If there were any merit to this whatsoever, he’d have filed it while he was still in prison instead of waiting almost until Election Day.”

Current U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart, who was nominated by President Donald Trump last year, said his office wants to “ensure justice is the ultimate result and any response (to the filing) will be through our actions with the court at the appropriate time.”

Blankenship was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of conspiring to willfully violate safety standards.

According to the motion, Mark Clemens, who oversaw Massey’s production, sales and budgeting, said in an interview previously undisclosed by prosecutors that “there was pressure at Massey to run coal, but not enough pressure to overlook safety.”

The motion said many of the documents involved interviews with people who testified at the trial. Among them was Christopher Blanchard, who ran the Massey subsidiary that oversaw Upper Big Branch.

Blanchard testified under an immunity agreement with the government but helped the defense during almost five days of cross-examination. He previously told Blankenship’s attorneys that he himself didn’t break any laws and denied being involved in a conspiracy with Blankenship to violate safety regulations.

The motion said most of the previously undisclosed emails were written by former FBI Special Agent James Lafferty, who testified about a variety of investigation topics, from Blankenship’s compensation to his frequent receipt of reports detailing Upper Big Branch’s violations.

The documents also cited former Massey safety expert William Ross, who gave a tough review of the company’s safety shortcomings. While talking about a 2009 meeting with Blankenship, Ross testified he told Blankenship that Massey couldn’t “afford to have a disaster.”

Four investigations found worn and broken cutting equipment created a spark that ignited accumulations of coal dust and methane gas at Upper Big Branch. Broken and clogged water sprayers then allowed what should have been a minor flare-up to become an inferno.

During the trial, prosecutors called Blankenship a bullish micromanager who meddled in the smallest details of Upper Big Branch. They said Massey’s safety programs were just a facade — never backed by more money to hire additional miners or take more time on safety tasks.

Blankenship’s attorneys rested their case without calling a single witness on his behalf.

Ex-Massey CEO Blankenship Claims Trial Documents Withheld

Convicted former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship claims documents that would have assisted his defense weren’t made available to his attorneys before his trial and he’s asking a federal court to vacate his misdemeanor conviction.

Blankenship made the claim in a news release through his U.S. Senate campaign to announce a planned motion to vacate the conviction. No motion was listed on a federal court website Tuesday night.

The statement claims that among the withheld information were federal Mine Safety And Health Administration documents. The campaign’s statement didn’t include the documents.

Blankenship served a one-year prison term on a misdemeanor conviction stemming from the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 men in southern West Virginia. Blankenship has long maintained he didn’t get a fair trial.

Deanna Eder, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Charleston, declined comment Tuesday night.

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