As DeWine Top Aide’s Group is Linked to FirstEnergy Scandal, DeWine & His Administration Must Answer These Questions
June 28, 2021
Columbus, OH — Last week, through court filings, FirstEnergy admitted that it “pumped” $20 million into Partners for Progress, a dark money group that played a key role in what is considered the largest public corruption case in the country. From Gannett’s Laura Bischoff:
“The [FirstEnergy] filing connects the dots that had been previously laid out in an FBI criminal complaint and IRS forms filed by Partners for Progress and Generation Now, 501(c)4 nonprofit organizations, which are often called dark money groups because they don’t have to disclose their funders.
“In total, the filing claims FirstEnergy Service Company, which is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy, gave $36.6 million to Generation Now and $20 million to Partners for Progress, which sent $13 million to Generation Now.”
This revelation highlights the growing connections between Governor Mike DeWine’s office and this scandal. When he became governor, DeWine appointed Dan McCarthy, the founder and president of Partners for Progress and a former FirstEnergy lobbyist, to be his top lobbyist as the Director of Legislative Affairs. Now, DeWine owes it to Ohioans to explain what he knew and when about his administration’s growing connections to this scandal.
- Dan McCarthy has said he didn’t think there was “anything improper” happening when Partners for Progress funneled millions of dollars to Generation Now. If that’s the case, what did he think was the purpose of that transaction? Was Governor DeWine aware of these transactions when he hired McCarthy?
- Was McCarthy in touch with Generation Now as his group, Partners for Progress, was funnelling millions of dark money dollars to them?
- What did Governor DeWine know about these transactions when he hired McCarthy?
- Now that FirstEnergy has all but admitted its role in this bribery scandal, when will DeWine return the more than $116,600 in donations from the company and its former CEO, as he had previously promised to do?
- Then-candidate DeWine met with FirstEnergy executives one day before the company gave $500,000 to the RGA and also met with executives in December 2018 shortly before appointing former FirstEnergy lobbyist Sam Randazzo to be the state’s top energy regulator. What promises did DeWine make to those FirstEnergy executives at those meetings?