FirstEnergy’s Secret $300,000 Payments to Matt Huffman’s ‘Dark Money’ Group

At the height of its far-reaching Statehouse bribery scheme, FirstEnergy secretly paid $300,000 over five checks to a dark money nonprofit its lobbyist explicitly associated with now-Senate President Matt Huffman, according to new records.

In May 2019, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit FirstEnergy funded and controlled wrote the first of its checks to a fellow dark-money group called Liberty Ohio, a group FirstEnergy lobbyist Ty Pine referred to in an email as “the Huffman C4.”

Dark-money nonprofits can raise limitless amounts of money without revealing their donors. At the time, Huffman was a state senator, widely expected to become Senate President, one of the most powerful positions in state politics.

Huffman has never been implicated in what has become a sprawling bribery scandal. However, newly released records show FirstEnergy organizing secret payments to benefit him politically, the beneficiary of about $4.3 million in documented FirstEnergy money across multiple similar groups.

Neither Governor Mike DeWine nor former Secretary of State Jon Husted has been accused of criminal or civil wrongdoing either.

Huffman, through a spokesperson, said he has never “created, controlled, or coordinated” any 501(c)(4). “The effort to interpret five-year-old emails from campaign operatives and lobbyists wrapped in hyperbole, big talk and false assumptions is just that, hyperbole, big talk and false assumptions,” said spokesman John Fortney.

House Bill 6, the 2019 legislation that delivered a bailout worth more than $1 billion to FirstEnergy, is at the center of the bribery scandal. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is serving a 20-year prison sentence for accepting FirstEnergy’s bribes. Two former FirstEnergy executives face felony state charges over a separate but related bribery case involving the state’s former top utility regulator.

FirstEnergy money began flowing to Liberty Ohio on May 29, 2019, when records show Partners for Progress, a nonprofit FirstEnergy funded and controlled, wrote the first of what would be three $50,000 checks that year. In June 2020, Partners for Progress transferred another $150,000 to Liberty Ohio.

About two weeks before that first check, Ray Yonkura, a political operative with High Bridge Consulting, emailed Pine, a longtime FirstEnergy lobbyist, with a PowerPoint “overview” of Liberty Ohio, an opaque organization with almost no public-facing profile. Pine forwarded the email to FirstEnergy lobbyist Joel Bailey, who sent it to Michael Van Buren, a Northeast Ohio attorney who served as treasurer for Partners for Progress. “Is this what you need on the Huffman C4?” Pine wrote.

At the time, FirstEnergy was engaged in two separate multimillion-dollar bribery schemes involving Householder and former top state utility regulator Sam Randazzo. In exchange, the two men offered critical support for passing HB6, which charged ratepayers statewide more than $1 billion to subsidize FirstEnergy’s money-losing nuclear plants. Prosecutors say the bill’s passage was the culmination of the largest public corruption scheme in Ohio history.

The connections between Huffman, Liberty Ohio, and FirstEnergy have not been previously reported.

The day before Partners for Progress wrote the first Liberty Ohio check, Van Buren emailed the nonprofit’s board, including Bailey, stating that Partners for Progress had been “asked” to contribute to Liberty Ohio. These documents and others, initially produced in an investor lawsuit filed against the company in connection with the scandal, were recently obtained by a public records request.

The day after Partners for Progress wrote the first $50,000 check, FirstEnergy lobbyist and vice president Mike Dowling emailed CEO Chuck Jones, saying “we’re going to need some C(4) infusion.” Jones asked how much they needed to get through the year.

“[FirstEnergy lobbyist] Danny McCarthy was on my a– last night about giving to Matt Huffman – the next Senate President,” Dowling wrote. “He wants us to give him A LOT. Why? Because Huffman is transactional and can get shot [sic] done. And when that happens, it helps the governor because it just makes things easier.”

Yonkura did not respond to a phone call or email. Thomas Datwyler, listed as the principal officer for Liberty Ohio on its tax records, did not respond to a voicemail. Jones and Dowling have pleaded not guilty to federal charges. Randazzo pleaded guilty to state and federal bribery charges as he was facing trial. FirstEnergy agreed to pay a $230 million penalty, cooperate with investigators, and publicly admit that dark money political contributions were “central” to its bribery scheme.

Householder is serving a 20-year sentence for racketeering. Former Ohio Republican Party chairman and lobbyist Matt Borges, who was convicted at trial, is serving a five-year sentence for racketeering. FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Juan Cespedes and Householder adviser Jeff Longstreth both pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors. They have not been sentenced. A fifth conspirator, lobbyist Neil Clark, died by suicide in 2021.

During the Householder investigation, two undercover FBI agents met with Clark seeking to make dark money contributions to various 501(c)(4) organizations. In the meeting, Clark said “Matt Huffman has his (c)(4) already set up.” However, a Huffman spokesman said at the time the tape was played at Householder’s trial that Huffman never controlled any 501(c)(4) nonprofit.

In the tapes, Clark also offered the undercover agents an idea of the value an ally like Huffman could provide. “Matt Huffman, he’s a Senator. He’s going to be the next Senate President,” he said. “He has eighteen votes in the Senate. Of the 24 Republicans, he has 18.”

Cespedes, in a January 2019 text message to FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyist Bob Klaffky, indicated after a meeting that Huffman was more supportive of the nuclear bailout than had been anticipated. “Matt Huffman is much stronger on our issue than I expected,” he said. “He could be our champion in leadership. He hates wind energy.”

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