It’s been two years since Don Blankenship—the former CEO of one of the United States’ largest coal companies and ex-candidate for a U.S. Senate seat—first accused a collection of media outlets of defamation when they mislabeled him a felon following his misdemeanor conspiracy conviction.

But at a pair of hearings Wednesday, Blankenship, who was in charge of A.T. Massey Coal when a mining explosion killed nearly 30 people, a panel appeared unlikely to support his claims after years of discovery yielded little evidence which showed media outlets acted with actual malice in making editorial gaffes.