WV GOP chair brushes off candidate’s prison term for miner deaths: ‘Most of us should be in jail’

Disgraced former mining tycoon Don Blankenship is running for the U.S. Senate in West Virginia, despite the fact that he was sent to jail in 2016 for his culpability in the deaths of 29 miners who worked for him.

Even though some Republican Party operatives are nervous about the prospects of running a man whose violations of mine safety laws left him legally liable for the deaths of 29 men in a 2010 mine explosion, other West Virginia Republicans tell Politico that they're willing to look past his old legal problems.

Rev. Becky Deitch, chairwoman of the Brooke County GOP in West Virginia, tells the publication that Blankenship's past sins aren't any worse than those of other politicians.

"Most of us should be in jail for the things we do," she said. "We just haven’t been caught. No one’s gone after us."

One way that Blankenship is hoping to rehabilitate his image in the state is by claiming that he was framed by former President Barack Obama, despite the fact that a state investigation found that "the mine’s ventilation system was poor and a buildup of coal dust led to the explosion" that killed 29 people.

Additionally, many of the dead miners' families remain staunchly opposed to him and are publicly decrying his Senate bid.

"I feel like everything he says is a lie," Clay Mullins, whose brother was killed in the 2010 explosion, told local news station WVNSTV recently. "He proved that throughout the whole investigation of MHSA and the state"