Reporter at News 5 Cleveland
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Governor Mike DeWine deflected questions about his relationship with former FirstEnergy executives after text messages revealed he asked for money ahead of his first gubernatorial campaign. He also seemed frustrated with our questions about him allegedly being informed about half a million dollars that the now-indicted CEO put into a dark money PAC for him.
FirstEnergy has already admitted to bribing public officials to help the company behind the scenes — in one way — by pushing and helping to create H.B. 6. Back in 2019, Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder took a $61 million bribe in exchange for legislation to give FirstEnergy a $1 billion bailout, named H.B. 6, all at the expense of the taxpayers.
"What you have with Dewine and Dewine's family is a connection with money coming out of FirstEnergy, going to their political — either proxies or affiliates — in furtherance of that, which again adds to the bad optics of what's going on," Benza said. " vision, experience and strong leadership will be great for our state, our communities, our company and our shareholders," Jones said.
The governor didn't address this part of my question. The Lt. Gov.'s team pointed us back to Jones and other FirstEnergy executives.
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