‘Call Mike DeWine on the $500k:’ Governor’s text sparked dark money payment, texts show

COLUMBUS, Ohio – About a month before the 2018 election that would launch then-Attorney General Mike DeWine into the governor’s office, he sent a text to FirstEnergy’s CEO – indicted earlier this year on bribery charges – looking for a cash injection to help put him over the top.

“Chuck. Can u call me?” DeWine wrote to company CEO Chuck Jones on Oct. 13, 2018, adding that a teachers’ union gave a million dollars the day before to a group backing his Democratic rival.

Records show FirstEnergy had already spent millions backing DeWine, including its subsidiary giving $500,000 to the pro-DeWine Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) just two days prior. Jones forwarded DeWine’s outreach to Mike Dowling, a senior vice president – who also was indicted this year on bribery charges alongside Jones. By Oct. 16, 2018, the FirstEnergy men agreed to a “dark money” contribution, which are unlimited in size and not publicly disclosed.

“Chuck – go ahead and call Mike DeWine on the $500k. It’s going to RGA’s C(4) called State Solutions. All set,” Dowling said in a text to Jones.

DeWine has said he didn’t know the extent of FirstEnergy’s dark money support for his gubernatorial races. But newly revealed text messages and other documents suggest he personally solicited some of the money from FirstEnergy’s top executive.

The two FirstEnergy men have been accused by state law enforcement of paying a $4.3 million bribe to Sam Randazzo, whom DeWine appointed as Ohio’s chief utility regulator. FirstEnergy as a corporate entity, in a guilty plea-like arrangement with federal prosecutors, admitted to bribing both Randazzo and ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who’s now serving a 20-year prison sentence. Among other favors, both Randazzo and Householder worked from inside state government to ensure legislative passage of a $1.3 billion ratepayer-funded bailout of FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants.

Beyond the fundraising, the texts depict DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted as powerful insiders lobbying for House Bill 6, legislation that bailed out the nuclear plants while also providing FirstEnergy a roughly $50 million per year “decoupling” revenue stream.

DeWine won the 2018 election thanks in part to FirstEnergy’s support. The company that year gave $2.5 million to State Solutions, a dark money arm of the Republican Governors Association, internal records show. It also gave the $500,000 to the RGA directly. It provided $75,000 through another 501(c)(4) to support the governor’s daughter in a local prosecutorial race. And in 2019 it gave $300,000 to the pro-DeWine Securing Ohio’s Future 501(c)(4).

When DeWine came looking for a boost with his October 2018 text message to Jones, FirstEnergy’s top executives wondered if they had already done enough. The company had done “more than anyone,” Dowling told Jones in a text message. Dowling, FirstEnergy’s top lobbying agent, texted Jones that DeWine “already knows about” the $500,000 contribution that FirstEnergy’s subsidiary provided to the RGA that week. The two mulled how to respond but made up their mind to provide another donation by Oct. 16. Jones told Dowling he’d call DeWine that evening to tell him.

DeWine has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. Dan Tierney, a DeWine spokesman, said the governor doesn’t recall if he spoke on the phone with Jones on Oct. 13 or Oct. 16, as the texts depict. However, if the calls did occur, they would have been consistent with “hundreds of calls” seeking financial support he was making at the time, Tierney said.

However, Tierney denied that DeWine solicited a contribution to a supportive dark-money group, which Tierney said would be illegal. He said DeWine has followed all campaign finance laws and didn’t coordinate with any independent expenditure group. Tierney called it “sick and disgusting” and “highly offensive and irresponsible” to suggest otherwise, despite Dowling’s text to Jones instructing the CEO to inform DeWine.

The texts referenced in this story were released by FirstEnergy to investors suing the company in the wake of the still-unfurling bribery scandal as part of the legal process. The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, a state agency, obtained the evidence exchanged by the parties as part of the state’s regulatory investigation into the matter, and has been releasing them on a rolling basis in response to a public records request.

Powerful friends

The documents shed new light on ties between FirstEnergy and Husted.

Back in 2017, FirstEnergy backed Husted, who at the time was battling DeWine for the Republican nomination for governor. He eventually bowed out to join the ticket. Husted kept an open line of communication with Dowling, text messages show.

The company that year secretly gave $1 million to another dark money group for what’s described in company records as “Husted campaign.”

Around that time, Dowling texted Husted about a supportive mailer and TV ad he saw.

“Thank you for helping make it possible,” Husted replied.

When Husted agreed to drop his candidacy and instead join DeWine’s ticket, Dowling told Husted he’s “proud” of him. Husted responded: “I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

Husted, through spokeswoman Hayley Carducci, said he doesn’t remember what he was referring to as far as Dowling “helping make it possible.” She said most of the texts are other parties discussing Husted, as opposed to Husted speaking himself. And she added that Husted has long said publicly that he supports the plants because they provide the vast-majority of Ohio’s carbon free energy.

The documents also show:

– DeWine and Husted together toured the Davis Besse nuclear plant in Ottawa County in the summer of 2018, one of two that qualified for the bailout FirstEnergy sought. That day, Husted personally traded drafts of a statement with Dowling calling for nuclear power to be “included in the state’s energy strategy.”

– Dowling later helped DeWine and Husted land guests for a fundraiser in Texas. And Jones hosted a fundraiser for DeWine in his own backyard, where his prepared remarks call Husted a “friend of FirstEnergy.” After the event, Jones sent DeWine a message.

“We are glad to be able to help out. Ohio needs you,” Jones wrote.

DeWine wrote back: “Many many thanks.”

With FirstEnergy’s help, DeWine would go on to defeat Democratic candidate Richard Cordray and begin to build his administration. He hired a former FirstEnergy lobbyist, Dan McCarthy, as his legislative director. And he brought on his old chief of staff from his days in Congress, Laurel Dawson, who’s married to a FirstEnergy consultant. DeWine’s longtime campaign adviser Josh Rubin would become a FirstEnergy lobbyist.

DeWine would later nominate Randazzo – whom FirstEnergy later admitted to bribing with $4.3 million – as chairman of the PUCO. From that post, he led the five-member commission on several rulings in the company’s favor. DeWine has said he didn’t know about the $4.3 million until federal agents raided Randazzo’s home in October 2020. However, state prosecutors say Dawson knew about the payment in January 2019. Neither DeWine nor Dawson have explained the apparent knowledge gap.

DeWine appointed Randazzo despite a warning from an environmental group about his hostile stance on renewable energy and another from a former aide about Randazzo’s “opaque and undisclosed” ties to FirstEnergy.

FirstEnergy wanted Randazzo. The records show Dowling and Jones planned to “push DeWine hard” to appoint him and that they credited DeWine and Husted for performing “battlefield triage” during the nomination process when word got out about a financial link between FirstEnergy and Randazzo’s companies.

Randazzo pleaded not guilty to the state and federal charges and denied any wrongdoing. He died by suicide in April before his trial.

‘Who we want engaged’

Alongside his traditional regulatory duties, Randazzo, then a respected figure in statehouse GOP circles, helped draft and see to passage of HB6.

The bill sailed through the House with much more ease than the Senate, likely because Householder put his political muscle behind it. Records show that Householder believed DeWine wasn’t doing enough to help. He texted Jones that it would be a good time for DeWine to start showing some support for HB6 and “use the situation to LEAD.”

FirstEnergy and its allies came to see DeWine and his people not just as a supporter of HB6 but an active participant in lobbying state lawmakers to pass the bill.

Dowling relayed to Jones reports of him talking by phone with Husted, who lobbied senators to add additional years to the terms of the nuclear bailout proposed in HB6. A top executive at the FirstEnergy subsidiary that owned the nuclear power plants, said at Householder’s trial to be positioned for a $100 million windfall through the eventual sale of the subsidized plants, told Jones he “loved” Husted after meeting with him. Dowling too sung his praises.

“The admin is engaged – especially John [sic] Husted, which is who we want engaged,” Dowling said.

Ohio’s Constitution gives the governor 10 days to sign a bill after it passes. DeWine signed HB6 within hours of it passing the legislature.

Later that day, Jones texted Husted, thanking him for his “leadership on a very challenging issue.”

Jake Zuckerman covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.