Republican Sen. Jon Husted told a courtroom Wednesday that he remembers almost nothing of substance from a December 2018 dinner at the Athletic Club of Columbus, a dinner that prosecutors say was a key moment in one of Ohio's largest corruption scandals. Husted testified remotely in the trial of former FirstEnergy Corp. CEO Chuck Jones and former lobbyist Michael Dowling, both accused of bribing Ohio's top utility regulator in a scheme that ultimately touched $60 million in corruption and produced a $1 billion bailout of two nuclear plants.
Husted, who was lieutenant governor-elect at the time, said he was present at the Dec. 18, 2018, gathering alongside then-Gov.-elect Mike DeWine, Jones, Dowling, and FirstEnergy lobbyist Josh Rubin. Asked about the purpose of the dinner, Husted offered a hazy recollection.
I don't precisely know. I did not organize it. But it was, I think basically, it was that FirstEnergy was going to be in town and they wanted to say 'hi' and congratulate us on winning.
Neither DeWine nor Husted has been accused of wrongdoing. But what happened around that dinner tells a story that should disturb anyone who cares about how government actually operates in this country.
The dinner itself may have been friendly and forgettable for the politicians at the table, AP News reported. For the FirstEnergy executives, it was apparently one stop on a very busy evening.
Earlier that day, Rubin, who served as both a FirstEnergy lobbyist and an adviser to the DeWine-Husted campaign, provided guidance to executives on how to lobby DeWine in favor of the company's preferred candidate to chair the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, according to a text contained in the criminal complaint. Rubin also cautioned the executives not to mention to DeWine that they planned to meet Sam Randazzo at his residence after dinner.
That meeting happened. And the texts that followed paint a picture that is difficult to read as anything other than a transaction being finalized.
That same evening, Randazzo texted Dowling a list of figures spanning the years 2019 through 2024, with a total of $4,333,333. Dowling replied warmly.
Good seeing you as well. Thanks for the hospitality. Cool condo.
The next day, Jones texted Randazzo with a promise that carried an edge:
We're going to get this handled this year, paid in full, no discount.
He followed up with another message:
Don't forget about us or Hurricane Chuck may show up on your doorstep! Of course, no guarantee he won't show up sometime anyway.
Randazzo's reply was the kind of message that prosecutors dream about:
Made me laugh — you guys are welcome anytime and anywhere I can open the door. Let me know how you want me to structure the invoices. Thanks.
"Let me know how you want me to structure the invoices." That is not the language of a public servant. It is the language of a contractor confirming a deal.
Shortly after that December dinner, DeWine appointed Randazzo to lead the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. This even though DeWine's own then-chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, had vetted a dossier on Randazzo, urging the governor-elect not to choose him. That document was reviewed and dismissed without ever being shown to DeWine.
Husted testified that Randazzo was not FirstEnergy's preferred candidate for the job. If true, that raises its own set of questions about how deep the company's relationships ran across multiple potential appointees. It also raises the question of how a candidate that the company supposedly didn't prefer ended up texting them invoice structures before he was even confirmed.
Husted said the only opposition to Randazzo's nomination he could recall came from American Electric Power. He confirmed the general theme of discussions he'd had with Jones and Dowling surrounding progress on House Bill 6, the state bailout bill, but offered little in the way of specifics.
Special Assistant Attorney General Matthew Meyer pressed Husted on his knowledge of Laurel Dawson and her husband, Mike Dawson. Husted said he knew Laurel Dawson and described Mike Dawson as a friend. But when Meyer described Mike Dawson as:
Husted said he was not aware of any of it.
This is the recurring theme of Ohio's FirstEnergy scandal. Everyone was in the room. Nobody saw anything. The lobbyists knew the campaign advisers who knew the chiefs of staff who knew the regulators, and yet each individual claims to have operated in a silo of blissful ignorance.
The scope of this scandal is staggering. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder is serving 20 years in federal prison for masterminding the scheme. Prosecutors allege Jones and Dowling bribed Randazzo in early 2019 in exchange for legislative and regulatory favors. Randazzo faced state and federal charges for his role before dying by suicide in April 2024.
The whole affair revolved around House Bill 6, which funneled roughly $1 billion in ratepayer money to bail out two FirstEnergy-associated nuclear plants. Ohio residents footed that bill. They were told it was a good energy policy. It was, in fact, the product of a bribery operation so sprawling that it consumed a House Speaker, a utility regulator, and a Fortune 500 company's C-suite.
Husted, who was appointed last year to the Senate seat vacated by Vice President JD Vance, is expected to face Democrat Sherrod Brown, a three-term former senator who lost a reelection bid in 2024. The senator's proximity to this trial, even as a witness rather than a defendant, will be a feature of that race whether he likes it or not.
Conservatives have long argued that the regulatory state breeds corruption. When government agencies have the power to pick winners and losers in energy markets, to set rates, to grant monopoly protections, and to funnel billions in public money to private companies, the incentive to capture those agencies becomes irresistible. FirstEnergy didn't bribe regulators because the people involved were uniquely evil. They did it because the system made it profitable.
That doesn't excuse anyone. Jones and Dowling deserve to face justice if the evidence supports the charges. Householder is already paying his debt. Randazzo escaped accountability in the worst way possible.
But the underlying architecture that made all of this possible remains intact. Ohio ratepayers are still paying for House Bill 6. The Public Utilities Commission still wields enormous power over energy markets. And the revolving door between lobbying firms, campaign operations, and regulatory appointments still spins freely.
Everyone at that dinner at the Athletic Club of Columbus knew everyone else. The politicians say they didn't know what the lobbyists were doing. The lobbyists apparently knew exactly what the politicians could deliver. Somewhere in the gap between those two claims, $60 million changed hands, and Ohio got robbed.
