The Random Politics Thread

[China]

On 3/15/2021 at 9:07 PM, China said:

Timing Key In Consulting Deal Between FirstEnergy, Regulator

 

Shortly before a utility lawyer and lobbyist was appointed Ohio’s top regulator of electric and power generating companies, he received $4.3 million from top executives at one of the companies whose fortunes would soon be in his hands.

 

In the months that followed, that company — Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. — won a string of legislative and regulatory victories worth well over $1 billion over time to the company and its subsidiaries, including a nuclear plant bailout that’s at the center of a $60 million federal bribery probe.

 

The bulk of that tab was to be paid by the state’s electricity customers.

What investigators at the state and federal levels now want to know is whether Sam Randazzo, the utility lawyer-turned-regulator who has since resigned, helped FirstEnergy in exchange for millions.

 

The payment to a future state official meeting Randazzo’s description received from then-executives of the utilities giant in January 2019 is the subject of an ongoing audit by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which Randazzo chaired from April 2019 to last November, when he resigned under a cloud.

 

Corporate filings from November differed in the descriptions provided to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the payment made by fired top officials. FirstEnergy’s board of directors fired CEO Chuck Jones and two other executives weeks earlier for having “violated certain FirstEnergy policies and its code of conduct.”

 

FirstEnergy’s quarterly earnings report said the payment terminated a “purported consulting contract” dating back to 2013. Recent sleuthing by Energy and Policy Institute, a pro-renewable energy watchdog group, unearthed a disclosure in lending documents that suggested Randazzo was paid for future work, creating questions on what actions he might have taken as PUCO chair on behalf of FirstEnergy.

 

Randazzo was involved in other actions while chair that stood to benefit FirstEnergy companies. The most significant was House Bill 6, the $1 billion nuclear bailout bill.

Then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican, and four associates, were arrested and indicted on federal racketeering charges in July, accused of orchestrating an elaborate scheme secretly funded by FirstEnergy to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies and pass the now-tainted bill. The legislation was promoted as a plan to secure the future of two aging nuclear plants then operated by a wholly owned FirstEnergy subsidiary.

 

Documents subpoenaed by the FBI showed Randazzo had a significant role in writing the bailout bill.

 

Calendars obtained by the AP through a public records request further show that Randazzo met with Householder and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine at the Governor’s Residence for an “energy discussion” in April 2019. That was less than two weeks after Randazzo had become PUCO chair and a day later the bailout bill was introduced. He also met in 2019 with both men’s policy advisers, as well as other administration officials.

 

DeWine’s office said in response to a separate records request that there was no further documentation of the meeting. The AP reported Dec. 10 that DeWine in early 2019 disregarded cries of alarm over Randazzo’s close ties to FirstEnergy before appointing him to the commission. DeWine has stood by the decision.

 

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Ex-PUCO chairman Sam Randazzo accused in FirstEnergy bribery scheme has died

 

Former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Sam Randazzo, who was facing criminal charges over a bribery scandal, has died by suicide.

 

A spokesman for the Franklin County Coroner said Randazzo was found shortly before noon Tuesday in a Columbus warehouse that he owned.

 

Randazzo, 74, of Columbus, was recently accused of accepting $4.3 million from Akron-based FirstEnergy to help the company with a $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants and regulation that would have cost the company money. He was also accused of embezzling from his clients. He had pleaded not guilty to charges in state and federal court.

 

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[China]

Eric Adams’ legal defense fund drops longtime ally after crude comments

 

One of Mayor Eric Adams’ fundraising entities on Wednesday fired the security and private investigative firm run by longtime friend and donor Bo Dietl shortly after Dietl berated a POLITICO reporter.

 

Dietl’s company was hired to vet donors to Adams’ legal defense trust — a fundraising entity to help pay legal bills connected to a federal probe into Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. In January, the organization paid Dietl’s firm just under $13,000 — an expense first reported by the Daily News, whose reporter Dietl reportedly cursed at this week.

 

When asked for comment Wednesday afternoon about the services he was paid to perform for the trust, Dietl told a POLITICO reporter: “Why don’t you do me a favor. Go suck somebody’s dick, because I don’t want to talk to you, OK? You like to suck dick? Go suck dick somewhere.” He then hung up the phone.

 

Less than two hours after being informed of Dietl’s remarks, the trust’s counsel, Vito Pitta, condemned Dietl and told POLITICO he would be let go.

 

“The mayor believes that that language is unacceptable, and that no person should talk to another person in such a disrespectful way,” Pitta said in a statement.

 

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