Don Blankenship is the former CEO of Massey Energy. If you think Donald Trump is a jerk, it’s only because you never met Blankenship. Sure, Trump sent $25,000 to Pam Bondi to get out of a Trump University investigation. But did he take a state Supreme Court judge to the French Rivera for champagne and hookers? Did he spend $3 million to buy another judge while he had a case before that court so he could get a favorable ruling?
And okay, Trump might have had workers build a skyscraper without helmets, but Blankenship—who had a lovely habit of telling his workers to ignore safety standards—got 29 men killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010.
For directly issuing the orders that sent these men to their deaths, Don Blankenship received a whopping one year in jail.
Tommy Davis ... lost a brother, a son and a nephew in a disaster that could have been prevented.
Davis gave a heart-wrenching speech in front of reporters after the sentencing hearing.
“This man has no remorse at all,” he said of Blankenship, whom a federal judge penalized for conspiring to ignore safety protocol to produce more coal.
Remorse? Blankenship is proud of what he did. Deeply proud. He’s the man who crushed the union! Brushed aside regulators! Turned judges into his servants! He’s the Republican hero personified.
Frustrated you don't live in a swing state? No matter where you live, MoveOn has a great way for you to help their on-the-ground efforts to defeat Donald Trump and take back the Senate. Click here to volunteer.
And just so you don’t forget it, Don Blankenship is writing his own letter from jail.
Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who is serving a one-year sentence in federal prison for violating mine safety laws, is issuing a highly unusual personal defense this week, using a 67-page booklet to declare that he is an “American Political Prisoner.”
The 2010 explosion at Blankenship’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 people — the worst coal mining disaster in roughly 40 years — and Blankenship was found guilty of a misdemeanor for his “part in a dangerous conspiracy” to flout federal mine safety regulations, in the words of Judge Irene C. Berger. (Much to the dismay of prosecutors and some victims’ families, Blankenship was acquitted of three felony charges that would have resulted in a significantly longer prison term.)
But don’t you worry. Blankenship is pure as the driven soot.
“You can be sure I am fully innocent,” he writes. “In fact, more than 100 percent innocent. I spent my life improving coal miner safety and exercising my right to free speech… The real conspiracies were the government’s cover-up of the UBB truth and my prosecution.”
Some people are just innocent, but Blankenship is “more than 100 percent innocent.” Blankenship’s version of the “truth” about the massive disaster? A lightening strike no one saw, traveling underground in a way no one has ever recorded, to hit a “freak” blast of natural gas produced for a reason no one can name. He even funded a documentary to prove, that it wasn’t simply his memo—and 40 phone calls on the day of the disaster—telling the mine to speed up production and forget doing anything for safety.
Multiple investigations into the disaster found severely inadequate ventilation, plus a buildup of explosive coal dust, combined with a spark from equipment resulted in a series of mile-long blasts that trapped or incinerated dozens of workers. Blankenship had told Massey executives to put safety improvements on hold, writing to one executive in 2008, “We’ll worry about ventilation or other issues at an appropriate time. Now is not the time.”
I have an idea for the few months remaining on Blankenship’s sentence. Why does he serve them close to home ... in a mine. One kept to his exacting standards.