CHARLESTON — A federal subpoena commanded the state Department of Commerce to provide a range of records about The Greenbrier, The Greenbrier Classic PGA golf tournament and Old White Charities, the nonprofit arm of the resort.
Gov. Jim Justice and his family own The Greenbrier and run the golf tournament and the charitable organization.
The subpoena names the governor and asks for records of any communication with people acting on behalf of the resort, the golf tournament or the charity.
It specifically mentions James C. Justice II, who is the governor, his son James C. Justice III, who goes by Jay, his daughter Jill, who has been running the resort, as well as Habibi Mamone, who ran the charity.
Several others are also named as people who might have represented the entities. And the request covers the new name for the golf tournament, A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier.
The subpoena is not evidence of wrongdoing, but it does indicate federal officials have been looking into some aspect of the governor’s prominent private operations.
MetroNews obtained the subpoena through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Commerce and to the state Development Office.
Because the federal government was issuing a subpoena to a state agency, the document would be considered public.
The subpoena asks for records starting Jan. 1, 2014, and continuing through March 6, 2019.
The records were supposed to be produced by April 2, which was one week ago.
Rumors swirled for weeks about an investigation and subpoenas that have gone out, not just to the agency but to others in West Virginia government and private business.
Pages within the subpoena make reference to the possibility of testifying before a grand jury.
Asked last week about rumors of a federal investigation, U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart, whose office is in the Southern District of West Virginia, revealed very little.
“When you’re as active as my office, lots of rumors fly,” Stuart stated to MetroNews. “There is always a grand jury every week, multiple times.”
Brian Abraham, general counsel for the Governor’s Office, acknowledged the subpoena’s existence. He said no money has gone from state government to the governor’s private holdings since Justice ran for office.
“It obviously exists. The documents that have been requested we believe pre-date the governor’s time in office,” Abraham said in a telephone interview.
“From 2016 on, which would have been the year he was running for governor, no monies from the state of West Virginia were paid to the golf tournament or the charity or The Greenbrier. We’ve had in place since the governor took office a moratorium on any agencies or their officials even being able to stay at The Greenbrier.”
Abraham could not confirm the existence of other subpoenas.
“This is the only one that I believe we’ve received in all of state government.”
Justice was elected governor in 2016 and took office at the start of 2017. Justice bought The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009.
The billionaire governor never placed all of his assets into a blind trust. He does produce an annual financial disclosure form.
Early in his time in office, he produced a letter to state employees. It said he would like to pursue a blind trust but the process had been slowed by the size of his business portfolio.
All along, he said he put Jill in charge of The Greenbrier and Jay in charge of the coal operations.
“I’ve separated myself from my business holdings by putting my children in charge of our family’s business operations. Being Governor is a full-time responsibility,” Justice wrote in his 2017 letter.
“I want to put all of my assets in a blind trust; however, the process has been slowed down by the multitude of financial institutions that work with my family’s companies. I will continue to file very detailed ethics reports, just like during the election, which lets everyone know about my family’s businesses and investments.”
He added in that letter that he doesn’t want to even give the appearance of a conflict of interest.
“I didn’t run for Governor for me; I ran to help the people of West Virginia. I don’t want a thing from this office. The last thing I want is a conflict of interest between my family’s businesses and state government. Even the slightest whiff of a conflict won’t fly with me.”
Each of the entities described in the subpoena has been going through financial challenges.
Justice’s businesses related to the resort filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year, claiming insurance companies failed to adequately compensate for damages from the massive flood that struck the area surrounding The Greenbrier in 2016.
The Greenbrier Classic golf tournament, which was renamed, is having to move to a less desirable fall date because of financial strains with the PGA Tour.
The hotel did not have enough funds to pay the $10.4 million title sponsorship for 2017 up front. So an agreement was hatched to pay in installments in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, along with title sponsorships for those years.
But in exchange, the PGA required the Greenbrier Hotel to give up its Fourth of July week and move to September.
A 2018 article in The Charleston Gazette-Mail described mounting losses for operators of Old White Charities.
The newspaper’s examination of records showed the nonprofit about $11.6 million in the red as of 2016.
The report indicated Old White Charities allocated about 4 percent of its total spending on actual charitable causes between 2010 and 2015.
From 2010 to 2016, the nonprofit reported donating $4.9 million to various charities and received $16.5 million itself in gifts and grants, the newspaper reported.
