Householder is accused of masterminding a scheme to use $61 million in utility money to elect House members who would vote to make him speaker at the beginning of 2019.
CINCINNATI — Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder on Wednesday claimed that he never promised any legislative action to FirstEnergy in exchange for the tens of millions the company paid into a 501 dark money group he controlled.
After sitting through federal court testimony since Jan. 23, Householder on Wednesday took the witness stand in his own defense. That’s considered by many lawyers to be a risky strategy because he will be subject to cross examination by prosecutors who are eager to catch the former speaker in a lie. On the stand, Householder introduced himself as a guy from Appalachia who had worked for years to protect Ohio’s energy independence. But he also made a number of statements prosecutors are likely to challenge.
Householder’s claimed concern for carbon emissions also seems to clash with earlier statements he made on the stand. He testified that he was president of a group that owned an Alabama coal mine and that during an earlier stint in the Ohio House, he worked to subsidize coal production. But Householder on Tuesday said he didn’t want blind loyalty, he wanted independence. As for wanting casket carriers, that meant “I didn’t want enemies. I wanted friends,” Householder testified.He denied testimony from former aide Jeffrey Longstreth that in an Oct. 10, 2018 meeting,
Householder said his understanding was that Generation Now was “a vehicle that would educate the public on issues that were important to Ohio.”
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