Trump administration officials shut down a federal criminal probe earlier this year into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican West Virginia senator and close ally of the president. The investigation looked into possible criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the family’s multistate mining businesses, which are primarily operated by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the case. The criminal inquiry marked a major escalation in the long-running effort to address repeated pollution violations by Virginia-based Southern Coal and dozens of related mining operations owned by the family. In the last 10 years, Southern Coal and other companies owned by Justice have accumulated tens of thousands of claimed violations of the Clean Water Act. They have been sued multiple times by state and federal authorities for failing to comply with environmental regulations at their mining operations. The probe that was halted by the Trump administration was a collaborative effort involving prosecutors and investigators from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. Its goal was to determine whether the companies’ repeated breaches of pollution laws amounted to criminal conduct, according to individuals with knowledge of the matter. Those familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that prosecutors felt they had a strong case. They initially received approval from Robert Tracci, President Donald Trump’s top official in the Western District of Virginia, to proceed. However, in recent months, as prosecutors fought the Justice companies in court over subpoenas for records, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General terminated the investigation. At that time, Todd Blanche was still leading the office, prior to becoming acting attorney general in April. “They were told ‘pencils down,’” said a person familiar with the probe. That federal prosecutors were pursuing a criminal investigation at all is significant, according to people familiar with the matter, because the Justice Department brings only about a dozen criminal Clean Water Act cases annually. It is uncommon for senior DOJ officials to halt a criminal probe started by career prosecutors at such an early point, according to individuals familiar with the matter. “I’ve never heard of that happening before,” said former federal prosecutor Rick Mountcastle, speaking in general terms about standard DOJ procedures. Mountcastle served as a prosecutor in Virginia’s Western District for 24 years. No one should be placed on some kind of untouchable list that shields them from accountability.
