The trail of debts - and claims made trying to collect them - that dogged Jim Justice well before he became West Virginia's two-term Republican governor has ballooned since the former billionaire became a U.S. senator earlier this year. Justice was elected last November to the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Joe Manchin, a Democrat who became an independent in 2024 near the end of his second full term. Justice, who owns dozens of businesses that include coal and agricultural operations, had a fortune estimated at $1.9 billion last decade by Forbes magazine.