Most days before the Senate starts its day, a privately-owned Cessna Citation V jet lands at Washington Reagan National Airport.
And most evenings, after the chamber is done with its business, the same jet takes off for Greenbrier Valley Airport in Lewisburg, W.Va.
On that plane is newly elected Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.).
Justice has been commuting to D.C. from his home in the Mountain State nearly every day, cutting what would be a four-hour drive to a 40-minute flight. Justice owns the famed Greenbrier resort, only 15 minutes from the airport.
On Monday, for example, Justice took off from Lewisburg at 3:42 p.m. and landed at DCA at 4:23 p.m., just an hour before the Senate voted. He left DCA at 6:49 p.m. — just two hours and 26 minutes later — and arrived back in West Virginia at 7:24 p.m.
On Tuesday, Justice took off from West Virginia at 9:54 a.m. and was in D.C. by 10:37 a.m. Justice then took off at 4:27 p.m., arriving in West Virginia by 5:05 p.m.
The plane started flying between Lewisburg and DCA on Jan. 14, the day Justice was sworn into the Senate.
In an interview, Justice acknowledged commuting to Washington on a private jet until he found a place to live in town.
“Well, I won’t do that as soon as I get a place to live,” Justice said last week.
“Because I came right out of the governorship on [Jan. 13], got sworn in that day, and so, really, truly, we just haven’t gotten a place yet,” Justice said. “God knows it’ll be a whole lot simpler.”
Justice added that he was paying the flight cost out of his own pocket, and no public funds were involved.
The 73-year-old Justice was once one of the wealthiest residents of West Virginia, but he has a negative net worth on paper thanks to more than $1 billion in debts and liabilities.
For normal people, landing a private jet at DCA is no easy task. After 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security tightened regulations for landing at DCA, which is located just southwest of the National Mall across the Potomac. Private jets must have an “armed security officer” on the aircraft who has had “a threat assessment conducted by TSA, as well as specialized training and authorization from TSA.”
Speaker Mike Johnson frequently flies private in and out of DCA, but the speaker has a large Capitol Police security detail.
To underscore just how rare it is for private jets to fly in and out of DCA, the plane carrying Justice was the only tracked private flight in and out of the airport on Tuesday, according to online flight tracking services.
