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Financial struggles are continuing to mount for Gov. Jim Justice and his family’s business empire as The Greenbrier Hotel, one of the largest assets belonging to the governor’s many companies, is set to go to public auction later this month because of default.
The auction was announced via a legal advertisem*nt posted Wednesday in Lewisburg’s West Virginia Daily News and was first reported by West Virginia MetroNews’ Brad McElhinney.
According to the advertisem*nt, the auction will take place at 2 p.m. on Aug. 27 in front of the Greenbrier County Courthouse. The property being auctioned totals 60.5 acres and is not the entirety of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. It excludes several amenities, including golf courses and other pieces of land.
At auction, according to the ad, the property will go to the highest bidder with cash-on-hand.
Justice bought the resort in 2009. It was in financial peril due to a global recession after years of expensive renovation, according to reporting in the Gazette-Mail. Its longtime previous owner, CSX Corp., had laid off half the staff and filed for bankruptcy, disclosing that it had lost $90 million over the previous five years.
In a statement, the Justice Companies called the foreclosure “another political stunt by the Democrat machine.”
According to the statement, Justice was notified July 1 that his loan with JPMorgan was sold to Beltway Capital, which declared the loan to be in default, initiated suit against the governor and his companies and started foreclosure proceedings against the Greenbrier, the statement said.
“This deceitful move by JPMorgan is nothing more than the latest political stunt by the Democrats to undermine the next Republican Senator from West Virginia,” the Justice Companies said in the statement. “In recent days, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s staunch ties to the Democrat party and his support for the Biden-Harris administration and continued control of the Senate by the Democrats have been well documented. This political stunt is just the latest of several rounds of attacks on Governor Justice and his businesses for political gain.”
Prior to the sale of the loan, Justice’s debt had been reduced to $9.4 million, according to the statement.
Attorney Bob Wolford added in the statement that the resort will not be sold and that the company will take “all necessary action” to ensure no adverse impact on their ownership of the Greenbrier or the Greenbrier’s operations.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, Mike Pushkin, chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party, pointed out that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been a defender of former President Donald Trump and a critic of President Joe Biden. The foreclosure is not a result of a Democrat political stunt, the statement reads.
“Gov. Jim Justice’s reckless financial behavior has not only embarrassed himself but has also cast a shadow over West Virginia on a national scale,” said Pushkin, D-Kanawha. “His actions are a disservice to the hardworking citizens of our state, who deserve better leadership and fiscal responsibility [than] what they are getting out of the Grifter in Chief. West Virginia deserves a governor who prioritizes the needs of its residents over personal gain.”
The foreclosure on The Greenbrier Hotel Corp. is the latest in a series of blows to the Justice family’s sprawling business empire.
Last May, the federal Department of Justice filed suit against Justice, his son and 13 of their coal mining businesses for failure to pay $5 million in health and safety fines accrued by the companies in several states.
Also in 2023, Carter Bank & Trust attempted to collect on a $300 million debt from loans made out to the family companies. According to MetroNews, a legal advertisem*nt was placed in newspapers announcing an auction of the Greenbrier Sporting Club (another Justice asset) to satisfy the debt. The Justices filed suit and the auction was put on hiatus.
In February, the state tax department filed seven liens against The Greenbrier for unpaid sales taxes totaling $3.5 million accrued from June to November of 2023. Last month, two of those liens — totaling nearly $900,000 — were withdrawn. Five liens totaling more than $2.7 million still remain against the Greenbrier Hotel Corp.
In May, a federal judge approved the $1.4 million sale of a helicopter owned by the family to an India-based construction company. The sale came after a months-long saga between Justice’s Bluestone Resources and Caroleng Investments, which was attempting to collect millions of dollars owed by the Justices to a Russian mining company for a business deal originally made in 2009. Bluestone, according to MetroNews, never made good on millions of dollars in royalty payments that were promised to the Russian company when it sold back several mining properties to Justice in 2015.
Last month, according to MetroNews, 652 parcels of land owned by the family’s companies and valued at $338,385 were put up for auction in Raleigh, McDowell and Monroe counties due to unpaid property taxes and a failure to heed over a year’s worth of warnings.
These are just a few of the countless examples of lawsuits, liens and more coming against Justice properties in the last decade due to unpaid taxes, bills and fines.
The financial woes, however, have not done much to hamper Justice’s political career. The two-term Republican governor is running a bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va. As a Republican, he is the heavy favorite in the race against his Democratic opponent, former Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott.
The governor regularly describes himself as a businessman over a politician and uses that background to justify his stances on different state policies and specifically the state’s financial health.
When pressed on issues affecting his personal business dealings, Justice has often lashed out at the media and — in a similar vein to the statements given Thursday by attorneys representing the Justice family companies — blamed politics.
Despite his various business dealings, Justice has refused to place his businesses in a blind trust while serving as governor. He insists that his family — namely his children — are responsible for running the business empire while he holds office, however the governor still lists them as assets on mandated financial statements.
After winning his primary in May, Justice said he would “probably not” put his businesses in a blind trust were he sent to Washington D.C.
“My kids do a good job,” he said, but if they wanted to ask his advice on business decisions, he continued, he wanted to be able to give his input.
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