FBI investigation revealed vast FirstEnergy-backed political network hidden through lax state disclosure rules
Updated Jan 19, 2021;
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Legal filings and media reports over the past six months gradually have peeled back the layers of a dark-money political network funded by FirstEnergy, the Akron-based utility company.
But because state and federal law don’t require political nonprofits to disclose their donors, the only reason the public knows about anything about the utility’s ties to the expansive constellation of Ohio political causes is the federal investigation into House Bill 6, the nuclear bailout law which prosecutors say passed due to a $61 million bribery scheme, funded by FirstEnergy and its affiliates through secret or difficult to trace political donations.
COLUMBUS – Cash from FirstEnergy Corp. and related businesses reached the coffers of dark money groups supporting Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his daughter and Greene County prosecutor candidate, Alice DeWine, newly revealed tax documents show.
The documents shed new light on a key player in a federal bribery investigation that entangled the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House and four others in July. They also show for the first time where a dark money group supporting Alice DeWine s bid for county prosecutor got some of its funding.
A spokesman for the governor told The Enquirer on Wednesday night that DeWine spoke with FirstEnergy officials in 2019 and asked them to support his daughter s effort with independent expenditures. Independent expenditures are political ads that support or oppose a candidate without cooperation with that candidate or their campaign.
Groups backing Gov. DeWine and his daughter received FirstEnergy cash funneled through dark money outfits Jackie Borchardt, Cincinnati Enquirer
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COLUMBUS – Cash from FirstEnergy Corp. and related businesses reached the coffers of dark money groups supporting Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his daughter and Greene County prosecutor candidate, Alice DeWine, newly revealed tax documents show.
The documents shed new light on a key player in a federal bribery investigation that entangled the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House and four others in July. They also show for the first time where a dark money group supporting Alice DeWine s bid for county prosecutor got some of its funding.