Charleston, W.Va., statehouse correspondent Anthony Izaguirre circled back to records compiled by the AP Data Team months earlier to reveal that Jim Justice, the state’s billionaire governor, had been West Virginia’s largest single beneficiary of soybean subsidies under the program created by the Trump administration to help farmers hurt by the trade war with China.
There is no evidence Justice did anything illegal, but his family farm maxed out the program to the tune of $125,000 in soybean and corn subsidies, causing at least one economist Izaguirre interviewed to wonder whether the benefits were going to the farmers who need them most.