Former U.S. Representative and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci claimed that Ohio’s current governor, Mike DeWine, leads similar to Democratic officials and urged DeWine to explain his connections to the recent bribery scandal that has embroiled numerous leaders in the state.
During the announcement that FirstEnergy, the energy company at the center of a public corruption investigation, was charged federally and agreed to pay a $230 million monetary penalty, DOJ officials explained bribes that were paid to former Speaker Larry Householder and the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio — a DeWine appointee.
“So there’s a lot out there that shows that Mike DeWine is entangled in this, and we’re calling for him to talk about it, tell us how much he got, how he got it,” Renacci said of the charges in an interview with Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius XM’s Patriot Channel.
Sam Randazzo, the PUCO chairman, was not the only official connected to DeWine that has been linked to FirstEnergy.
In an effort to continue its business dealings, FirstEnergy created a dark money group called Partners for Progress, which helped funnel money from the company to different figures.
DeWine‘s current legislative director Dan McCarthy served as the president of Partners for Progress for two years while he was a lobbyist for the energy company.
Renacci highlighted that corruption is just one of the many struggles facing the state under DeWine’s leadership.
“All these things under DeWine’s administration while he was playing the Cuomo game during then-COVID, him and Cuomo on TV every day talking about how they were going to restrict and shut down and require masks and require, you know, mandates and all these things which are Democrat-like,” Renacci described.
Renacci has continued to knock DeWine for his leadership throughout the course of the coronavirus pandemic. He called the state’s “Vax-A-Million” a “total failure.”
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for the Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Mike DeWine” by Vivien McClain Photography CC BY-SA 4.0.
