COLUMBUS, Ohio – A FirstEnergy lobbyist said it was his. The group spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying his political team. But Ohio Senate President Matt Huffmanand The Plain Dealer show that Liberty Ohio, a dark-money group that raised nearly $1.4 million from FirstEnergy and other companies and spent nearly as much in 2019 and 2020.
The records pertaining to Liberty Ohio do not suggest any wrongdoing on Huffman’s behalf. Political nonprofits are common and legal, although prosecutors in the House Bill 6 case say they facilitated FirstEnergy’s scheme to bribe ex-House Speaker Larry Householder to help secure legislation worth more than $1 billion to the company.
In an email this week, John Fortney, a Huffman spokesperson, reiterated that Huffman was not in control of Liberty Ohio. Political nonprofits are barred from coordinating with candidate campaigns under federal law. At least $69,000 of the money Liberty Ohio spent went to Medium Buying, a Republican political ad firm, to buy TV ads that year attacking Lang’s political opponent, state Rep. Candice Keller.
Van Runkle, whose group has given to many other C4s, said it can be hard to remember which ones he’s helped fund, since their names all sound the same.Liberty Ohio’s other six-figure contributors included Charter Communications, the cable company and Empower Ohio Inc., a nonprofit tied to American Electric Power .