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don blankenship
Don Blankenship, Dead Miners, Humility, and the Limits of Free Speech in West Virginia
A call came in and there was a man who wanted to know if I had any questions for the former coal CEO and convict now running for U.S. Senate. Turns out I did have one.
Mar 14, 2018
I was sitting at home in West Virginia tonight when a call came in from the U.S. Senate campaign for Don Blankenship.
The campaign wanted to know if I wanted to participate in a phone call town hall with Don.
Sure, why not.
The man in charge of the town hall - a man Don referred to as Greg - said if I wanted to ask Don a question I should punch in star three on my phone.
I punched in star three and waited my turn.
During his opening remarks, Don laid out his conservative credentials - NRA member, pro-life, tough on liberals, on immigration illegal means illegal, drug test teachers, put America first and West Virginia first.
And he took all kinds of calls from around the state - from a father whose kids were dealing with heroin and opioids, from a man who was complaining about high utility bills, from another man who complained about liberals wanting to take away our guns.
Don was gracious and even tempered.
My notes indicate he even railed against "the corporations."
People were given ample time to ask their questions - one man went on for a couple of minutes before Don interjected to answer.
How democratic, I thought.
Here was Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, a man convicted of a federal crime that led to the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, a man who spent a year in jail for his crime, taking questions from random citizens from around the state. And letting them ask their questions, listening and actually answering the questions.
The question I wanted to ask was - Don do you actually think you can pull the wool over the eyes of West Virginians and win a Senate seat from West Virginia - the scene of the crime?
I actually think he can, because the Democrats are likely to nominate the corporatist Joe Manchin. And it's very difficult in a red state, in the age of Trump, for a corporate Democrat to defeat a corporate Republican - even if the Republican is multimillionaire CEO convicted of a crime connected to the deaths of 29 miners.
A new poll shows Blankenship is in second place (27 percent) in the May 8 Republican primary, gaining on Congressman Evan Jenkins (29 percent) who is in the lead, with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey trailing in third place at 19 percent.
But before asking my question, I opened with what was on my mind at that moment when Greg said - up next, Russell in Berkeley Springs.
"Hey Don," I said.
"Hey," Don said.
"Do you understand the term humility?" I asked.
"Yes," Don responded.
"What does it mean to you?" I asked.
"Well, it means when you are put in a position of power that gives you more power than you should have, you need to remember to be humble," Don said. "And when you are in a situation, some of the situations I've been in, it will create a lot of humility."
"The reason I raise it is because you have been convicted - " I started to say.
But then Greg cut me off and said - next Don we have Joy from Charleston who has a question about the economy.
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Gag Order in Blankenship Case Under Fire
Nov 19, 2014
And reporters and news organizations in West Virginia are circling the wagons, looking to overturn it.
The criminal indictment of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship for his role in the April 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion has been the top story in West Virginia since it was filed on November 13.
Cecil Roberts and Ellen Smith on Blankenship IndictmentCecil Roberts and Ellen Smith on Blankenship Indictment MetroNews Talkline November 17, 2014 see story at ...
But it is Judge Irene Berger's gag order that is drawing fire from the West Virginia press.
West Virginia Press Association executive director Don Smith told MetroNews Talkline that he and other news organizations are looking closely at possible legal avenues to challenge it.
The gag order prohibits the parties and their lawyers from talking with reporters.
But it also prohibits "actual and alleged victims, investigators, family members of actual and alleged victims" from making "any statements of any nature, in any form, or release any documents to the media or any other entity regarding the facts or substance of this case."
Judge Berger also put the documents filed in the case, including the indictment, under seal, available only to the lawyers in the case.
The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward first reported on the gag order.
Ward reported that U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's office even "removed a news release about the indictment from its website, but the Gazette has posted that release online."
"Blankenship's blog, which he uses to criticize federal regulators and labor unions and to promote his theories about mine safety and what caused the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, remains online," Ward reported.
University California Irvine Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky has written on gag orders, including a seminal 1997 law review article titled Lawyers Have Free Speech Rights Too: Why Gag Orders on Trial Participants Are Almost Always Unconstitutional.
"The secrecy of the documents clearly violates the First Amendment," Chemerinsky told Corporate Crime Reporter when asked about Judge Berger's gag order. "The law is unclear on the constitutionality of the gag order on lawyers and parties. But the judge does not have authority over those who are not parties, such as family members of victims. That is clearly unconstitutional. The judge's order goes much further than the Constitution allows."
Katie Townsend, the litigation director at the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, called Judge Berger's order "egregious."
"In addition to a plainly overbroad gag order that would seem to prevent family members of individuals killed in the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion from speaking publicly about their loved ones' deaths, the district court has ordered that the entire docket in this case be kept under seal," Townsend said. "The press and the public have a right to access the court's records and to observe Mr. Blankenship's criminal proceedings. It is antithetical to the First Amendment for basic information about this case to be kept from the public."
The gag order hasn't stopped reporters and others from airing their views of the Blankenship case.
(This father of a UBB miner who died in the April 2010 explosion refused to abide by the gag order.)
United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts went on MetrosNews' statewide radio Talkline show yesterday and said point blank that Blankenship belongs in jail.
The UMW released its report on the disaster in October 2011. The report was titled simply -- Industrial Homicide: Report on the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster.
"Ninety-five percent of the CEOs in this country want to do the right thing," Roberts said. "But we have laws in the country for the CEOs who have decided they do not want to do the right thing. Don fell into the category of the five percent."
"Don's attitude happens to be that he knows more than everybody else," Roberts said. "He knows how to run a coal mine better than anybody else -- now leave me alone. And that kind of attitude, particularly in a coal industry where people are doing extremely dangerous work, leads to what we saw in Upper Big Branch."
Talkline host Hoppy Kercheval asked Roberts -- do you believe he belongs in jail?
"I've said that Hoppy," Roberts responded. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it. Why is it in our society that people who violate laws outside of the workplace are charged with crimes, but if they violate laws inside the workplace -- well, you are not supposed to do anything to a CEO just because a mine blew up?"
Ellen Smith, publisher of the Mine Safety and Health News, told Kercheval that "these managers knew that by not focusing on ventilation or rock dusting, they clearly knew what they were doing was wrong and illegal."
Smith quoted a February 2008 memo cited in the indictment in which Blankenship says -- "We'll worry about ventilation or other issues at an appropriate time. Now is not the time."
"If they were ignoring a known ventilation problem, clearly they were breaking the law," Smith said.
Kercheval said that if he were defending Blankenship in court, he would argue -- "Okay, so he's a brutish guy, he's heavy handed, he's under pressure to produce coal and he probably shouldn't have done some of these things and pushed his people so hard, but there is a difference between being that kind of boss and being responsible for an explosion that killed 29 miners."
Smith said that she gets tired of people talking about "how dangerous underground coal mining is."
"In the same year when UBB was getting 47 or 48 withdraw orders, the Deer Creek mine had none," Smith said. "And they produced about the same amount of coal. These were both gassy mines. In that year, when the UBB mine had almost 800 citations, the Deer Creek mine has something like 55 -- just the comparison of a mine that can do it right and a mine that does it so wrong. And to say that you can't mine by the rules and the law and make money is simply not true. And not only can you make money, but you will not kill 29 miners while you are doing it."
Blankenship is being represented by William W. Taylor III, a partner at the law firm of Zuckerman Spaeder in Washington, D.C.
Taylor said that Blankenship is innocent and will fight the charges in the indictment.
"His outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats has earned this indictment," Taylor said. "He will not yield to their effort to silence him."
Blankenship is scheduled to appear in federal court in Beckley, West Virginia on Thursday at 1 pm for his arraignment.
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'Poster Boy for Malevolent Big Business' Indicted Over Fatal Coal Mine Disaster
Former Massey Energy CEO Blankenship could face 31 years in prison for his actions that led to and followed the Upper Big Branch disaster
Nov 14, 2014
Don Blankenship, the former CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, faces up to 31 years in prison after a federal grand jury indicted him Thursday on four criminal charges related to the worst coal mine disaster in decades.
Twenty-nine workers were killed in an explosion at the non-union Upper Big Branch (UBB) Mine near Montcoal, West Virginia in April 2010.
A 2011 investigation by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration found the disaster was "the result of a series basic safety violations [...] and were entirely preventable." It continues:
The tragedy at UBB began with a methane ignition that transitioned into a small methane explosion that then set off a massive coal dust explosion. If basic safety measures had been in place that prevented any of these three events, there would have been no loss of life at UBB.
The Justice Department stated Thursday: "The indictment charges Blankenship with conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety officials, making false statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and securities fraud."
From January 1, 2008, through about April 9, 2010, the Justice Department continues, the then-CEO "conspired to commit and cause routine, willful violations of mandatory federal mine safety and health standards" at the mine, and also conspired to cover up safety violations from federal inspectors.
After the deadly 2010 explosion, the Justice Department continues, Blankenship gave false statements and made misleading omissions to the SEC.
"Blankenship knew that [Upper Big Branch] was committing hundreds of safety-law violations every year and that he had the ability to prevent most of the violations," the Washington Post quotes the indictment as reading. "Yet he fostered and participated in an understanding that perpetuated UBB's practice of routine safety violations, in order to produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money."
"The carnage that was a recurring nightmare at Massey mines during Blankenship's tenure at the head of that company was unmatched."
--Cecil E. Roberts, United Mine Workers of AmericaIn the wake of the disaster, Amy Goodman described Blankenship a "poster boy for malevolent big business trampling on communities, the environment and workers' rights."
United Mine Workers of America International President Cecil E. Roberts issued a statement commending the "strong message" the indictment sends and blasting Blankenship's disregard for safety.
"The carnage that was a recurring nightmare at Massey mines during Blankenship's tenure at the head of that company was unmatched. No other company had even half as many fatalities during that time. No other company compared with Massey's record of health and safety violations during that time," Roberts stated.
When the April disaster occurred, Roberts continued, "all Americans learned what we in the coalfields already knew: For coal miners, working for Massey meant putting your life and your limbs at risk. Indeed, far too many suffered just that fate."
Gary Quarles, who lost his son in the explosion, told local ABC affiliate WCHS, "I will never be able to get over my son being killed--never."
Blankenship's attorney, William W. Taylor, III, said that his client "has been a tireless advocate for mine safety" and that the indictment was the result of his "outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats."
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This video from 2010 originally produced for the Charleston Gazette by Douglas Imbrogno offers a memorial to the workers who died at the UBB disaster:
Memorial to miners killed in the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West VirginiaHere's a memorial slideshow to the 29 miners, ages 20 to 61, who died in the April 5, 2010, explosion at the Massey Energy ...
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