Freshman Four Horsemen - Are Politicians Getting Richer?
PART ONE: Four new Republican senators are worth $1.48 - $2.7 billion combined.
Republicans Jim Justice of West Virginia, David McCormick of Pennsylvania, Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Tim Sheehy of Montana were all sworn into the Senate on Jan. 3, 2025.
They all flipped seats held by Democrats — helping Republicans control a unified government for the first time since 2017 and only the 25th time they’ve held it in history of the United States. Justice won the open seat to replace now-former Democrat Joe Manchin who did not run for reelection. McCormick beat Democrat Bob Casey in Pennsylvania; Moreno defeated Democrat Sherrod Brown in Ohio; and Sheehy bested Democrat Jon Tester in Montana.
So, what is in this edition? A first in a series of factual, data-driven reporting on the Four Horsemen — Republican Senators Justice, McCormick, Moreno & Sheehy.
“All politicans are corrupt and rich, so it doesn’t matter if I voted for a convicted felon!” - Everyone’s drunk uncle since Nov. 2024.
That’s Just My BabyDog, Yeah!: Jim Justice
Congratulations to the new top dog on the Hunter Political Wealth Index and condolences to his constituents.
Republican Jim Justice is personally worth at least $1.15 billion. He previously served as governor of West Virginia — which is 48th (out of 50 states) in median household net worth.
I would link to the U.S. Census Bureau’s tables and files, but they are no longer accessible since Donald Trump & Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have purged valuable resources paid for by the taxpayers.
Justice was West Virginia’s only billionaire when he was elected governor in 2016. He inherited a coal mining empire from his father.
Personally, Justice holds assets collectively worth at least $1.2 billion.
He owns 20 assets all individually worth over $50 million. Most of them are privately held stock or accounts receivable in various companies in the coal mining industry that are mostly based in Roanoke, Virginia:
A&G Coal Corporation
Bellwood Corporation
Blackstone Energy, LLC
Bluestone Resources, Inc.
Justice Low Seam Mining
Justice Thermal, LLC
National Resources, Inc
NUFAC Mining Company, Inc
Southern Coal Sales Corporation
Virginia Fuel Corporation
He also owns The Greenbrier resort and related companies— his ownership is valued at well over $180 million — which he almost had to forfeit in a public auction last year due to not paying state taxes. Yes, you read that correctly, a sitting governor and Senate candidate owned companies that were delinquent on taxes in the state he was supposed to govern at the time.
Please support local news channel WSAZ by reading their coverage reporting on Justice and his family’s financial problems and court cases.
However, he only reported receiving between $16k and $67k in asset-derived income last year. His rate of return was 0.001% based on his self-reported data.
Shockingly, Justice was appointed to the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship despite all of the delinquent debts of his inherited business empire.
He told WSAZ’s Curtis Johnson in 2024:
“Well, Curtis, I, I don’t know that’s really fair,” Justice answered. “You know, I would be again, to be brutally honest, I would tell you that we’ve gone through our bumps. That’s for sure, and we’ve gotten behind, but we’ve someway somehow always caught up and, you know, so Curtis, you know, I don’t really know. I don’t know many businesses that don’t have great times and some tough times.”
Maybe, Justice shouldn’t have donated his gubernotorial salary of $231,250 to “WV Dept of Education as a payroll deduction.”
In June of 2024, Justice and his companies settled a $1 billion lawsuit with a creditor: Carter Bank & Trust due to over $300 million in defaulted loan debts from Justice-owned companies like the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation.
The settlement terms were confidential although Justice reported the judgment as a liability worth at least $50 million with a six percent on demand interest rate owed to Carter Bank & Trust in Martinsville, Va.
He also reported additional judgment debts owed to MVB Bank in Bridgeport, W.V. (at least $1 million); Citizens Bank of WV, Inc. (at least $500k); XCoal Energy Resources in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and Western Surety Co in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (at least $5 million). He also has still has an open line of credit of at least $25 million owed to McCormick 101, LLC - one of the creditors that tried to force the sale and auction of the Greenbrier assets in 2024,
Justice reported his personal ownership stake in the Greenbrier Hotel Corporation to be at the maximum reportable asset value of “Over $50 million”.
If you worried about Sen. Justice’s potential cash flow challenges or being “asset rich and cash poor”, please read Punchbowl News’ saccharine coverage of the richest politician’s daily commute on a privately-owned jet between his new day job in the District of Columbia and his home. He told them in an interview in January:
“Well, I won’t do that as soon as I get a place to live… Because I came right out of the governorship on [Jan. 13], got sworn in that day, and so, really, truly, we just haven’t gotten a place yet,” Justice said. “God knows it’ll be a whole lot simpler.”
Justice did not disclose any private jets as assets personally-held by himself or his wife.
He has also used a West Virginia state-owned jet during his time as governor for personal travel as reported by Charleston, West Virginia’s Metro News.
However, he did report owning five houses worth $800k - $1.75mil in his home state towns of Beckley, Daniels, Lewisburg and Prosperity as well as one in Blacksburg, Virginia that was held solely by his spouse, Cathy.
A reminder, his primary residence is excluded due to reporting rules for the disclosure forms.
For transparency sake, Senator Justice’s immediate predecessor in the Senate Joe Manchin served in the Senate for 14 years and was sued by his brother over a decades-old family business issue. Manchin was also a past governor of West Virginia.
Why Does It Matter?
Please be informed of your politicians’ personal financial information.
That’s our mission at the Hunter Index. The current federal administration is brazenly and publicly removing the public’s access to official data sets like those detailing the wealth disparities in this country.
As dedicated readers have probably learned from my not-too-subtle writing style, I enjoy refuting the bandwagon fallacies surrounding the personal wealth of politicians.
No, not every politician is corrupt and illegally profiting off of “insider trading”.
However as we can see with the head of the Four Horsemen above, we are potentially reaching a significant trend of wealthier individuals running and winning elected positions and entering into public office with significantly more personal wealth than their predecessors, competitors or the average constituent they were supposed to represent.
Managing Hunter's Political Wealth Index and its exclusive database which makes reporting like this possible is extremely expensive and labor intensive. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help fund this accountability project led by a disabled journalist or share this publication with others.
Editorial Note: As any good student remembers from their Intro to Philosophy courses in college, statistics can be easily manipulated into logical fallacies.
That’s why I’m calling this edition of Hunter’s Political Wealth Index a CASE STUDY!
This isn’t a comprehensive analysis of decades of data (that doesn’t even exist) comparing how newly elected members of Congress compare to their direct predecessors regarding their personal wealth or even reviewing all newly sworn in members compared to their predecessors — give our data team a few months on that one. This edition is simply the first in highlighting how these four new Republican senators — who have never previously served in a Congress — are significantly wealthier than not just who they replaced but more importantly, their constituents.