Here is your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, January 20th. Today on Forbes, this former billionaire and new

U.S. senator is now broke. When West Virginia Governor James Conley Justice II finishes out his

gubernatorial term in mid-January and reports to Washington, D.C., to be sworn into the United

States Senate, he will become one of the nation's poorest senators. But how can that be? After all,

for nearly a decade until 2021, Forbes figured justice to be a billionaire, the richest man in the

mountain state, thanks to a lifetime amassing a fortune in

coal and real estate, with gems like the historic 710-room Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia's

Allegheny Mountains, with its golf course that has hosted the annual live-golf tournament.

But a closer look at Justice's finances reveals that his empire is severely troubled.

The Greenbrier, for example, is suffering from years of neglect and may now be worth less than

half the $1 billion value Justice Long claimed.

Justice's coal companies, led by Bluestone resources, still mine about 500,000 tons per year, but that is down from

2 million tons a decade ago. They likely generate $150 million in revenues and have an

enterprise value less than $200 million. Those are substantial assets, but Justice's liabilities

are much greater. According to Forbes' estimates,

Jim Justice is in hock to the tune of more than $1 billion in the form of personally guaranteed

bank loans, debt, court judgments, and environmental liabilities. By Forbes reckoning,

the new Republican senator from West Virginia has a net worth of less

than zero.

Justice's attorneys and spokespeople have not responded to Forbes's repeated requests for comment.

Keeping an eye on every nickel is Justice's most concerned creditor.

Publicly traded Carter bank shares of Martinsville, Virginia, a $4.6 billion in assets

...