Fresh evidence in the FirstEnergy trial
On a hot day in July 2020, during the Trump 1.0 summer of an emerging pandemic and turbulence of the post-George Floyd status quo, a flock of FBI agents showed up at a farm in Perry County and arrested Ohio’s sitting House speaker. They said Larry Householder took a $60 million bribe from FirstEnergy in exchange for passing a $1.3 billion nuclear bailout on the company’s behalf. The arrest of “Big Larry” and four alleged conspirators shocked the state political system with allegations of a bribery plot at the highest levels of state government.
By October of that year, the feds uncovered evidence of what they say is a second, $4.3 million bribe to a second public official, Sam Randazzo, then the chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
For years, prosecutors focused on the public officials accused of accepting the bribes. On Tuesday, jury selection began in the trial of the corporate actors accused of paying them.
Ex-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Mike Dowling, former senior vice president of external affairs, face a spread of charges stemming from $4.3 million FirstEnergy paid to a company owned by Randazzo in January 2019 – just weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Randazzo as chair of the PUCO.
The trial at hand is focused on the payment to Randazzo. Jones and Dowling await a separate, federal trial that spans both the Randazzo payment and the alleged Householder bribe.
You can read my (Jake’s) table-setter before the trial begins in earnest here, including peeks at fresh evidence that could roll out at trial and possible defense witness appearances from DeWine and U.S. Sen. Jon Husted.
The entire, extended trial will be streamed for the public via Zoom. That only came to be after almost all of Ohio’s major news publishers signed a letter, authored and organized by me, to Akron Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross, asking for the stream as a nod to transparency and the expenses for news outlets covering a weekslong trial in Akron.
I’ve been reporting on the slow-burning but ever-present FirstEnergy scandal since that day on Householder’s farm six years ago. I plan on seeing that through to the bitter end. Follow Signal Statewide to keep up with the story, wherever it goes.
A Rooster’s wings are clipped
DJ Byrnes tells us that X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) banned his infamously leftist, outlandish and very online “The Rooster” account, dedicated to his Ohio politics newsletter, from the site.
He traced the ban to a post from The Rooster’s X account saying U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “will have to die in prison.” He posted it after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a U.S. citizen protesting ICE in Minneapolis on Saturday. The post referred to a news article stating that DHS and not the U.S. Department of Justice would investigate the killing. A press account for X didn’t respond to an inquiry.
There are different ways to interpret the suspension.
On the one hand, The Rooster is fueled by Byrnes’ idiosyncratic mix of leftist political commentary, original newsgathering, scurrilous insults and sporadic hijinks. Byrnes aggressively jams a GoPro in the faces of Statehouse lawmakers to grill them about state politics and policy. He refers to lawmakers as ghouls, hobgoblins and bugs in his dispatches. He has baselessly suggested (repeatedly) that the Speaker of the Ohio House is the Unabomber. Last year, under the guise of a fake Ohio State football coach, he conned Vivek Ramaswamy into meeting him at a Raisin’ Canes. And he’s a self-described communist who once, seemingly in jest, threatened to put Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose into a “figure four leglock.” (That last one got him temporarily suspended from X as well.)
On the other hand, The Rooster has built a broad and dedicated following despite the media industry’s slow-motion collapse. And he meets a market demand for a fusion between opinion columnist, interviewer and online creator. X’s action has the effect of neutering a prominent liberal voice in a deeply conservative state and inhibiting a marketing arm of his business. And his ouster comes in contrast to the platform’s allowance of a steady stream of racist or prurient content and its owner’s self-described “free speech absolutist” ways.
“If they are dubbing this as a legitimate ban, then I am sad I didn’t at least get full freight on the tweet and could have at least gotten a knock and talk from the FBI that would have been good for the business line,” Byrnes told Signal Statewide.
Brown, Husted both call for investigation of ICE
After federal agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minnesota in a month, both candidates for Ohio’s open Senate seat – former Sen. Sherrod Brown and incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted – found themselves in perhaps unusual agreement. They both called for investigations into the shooting. Their statements come as the federal government reportedly withholds evidence from state investigators looking into the Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti.
Husted, on X, said that “any incident involving law enforcement’s use of lethal force must be thoroughly and objectively investigated.”
Likewise, Brown said the killing of Alex Pretti “was wrong and immoral. We can see it with our own eyes. There must be a full investigation into what has happened.”
In contrast, U.S. Sen Bernie Moreno, a Republican who is not up for re-election, shared commentary on social media stating that “it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed.”
In the news
State ethics complaint: A state senator has failed to disclose all his natural gas business interests as his company has sought and won state contracts in the sector, according to a complaint filed with state ethics officials. Read more
Mark the calendar
Senate sessions canceled: The winter storm, which is apparently named Fern, caused a snow week for the members of Ohio’s 136th General Assembly. Several Senate committee hearings and a floor session were canceled. The Senate is next scheduled for a floor session Feb. 11.
Of note
Ohio’s current auditor and 2026 GOP attorney general candidate Keith Faber writes in a Columbus Dispatch opinion piece: Renee Good wasn’t an ‘innocent.’ I won’t tolerate lawlessness as Ohio AG.