The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has given another reason not to explain his involvement in the biggest corruption scandal in state history: There are other cases in the matter — including two he’s prosecuting — and there could be more.
Regardless of Yost’s position, last year, as they made their closing arguments in court, federal prosecutors seemed to have taken at least a passing interest in his involvement in an important phase of the scandal.
Former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, a defendant, in June 2019 told a co-conspirator that he’d had dinner with Yost. That was at a time when the AG was in a position to help stop the repeal of a corrupt law that provided Akron-based FirstEnergy with a billion-dollar bailout. Borges told the co-conspirator that Yost said he’d help where he legally could, the messages said.
Since then, the Ohio attorney general has declined to say whether Borges’ statement was true.
RELATED: Ex-Ohio GOP chair, lobbyist Matt Borges gets 5 years for role in $60M bribery scheme; vows appeal
Regardless of his motivation, Yost on Aug. 12, 2019 dealt a heavy blow to the repeal effort when he rejected a ballot summary of a repeal. Advocates have to get the AG’s approval before they can begin their effort in earnest, and they lost 36 of the 90 days they had to gather 265,000 certified signatures to put a repeal on the ballot.
Their effort ultimately failed.
In her closing argument in last year’s criminal trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Gaffney Painter appeared to link Borges’ claims of assistance from the AG to a $10,000 contribution he made to Yost several months later. The money originated with FirstEnergy, was laundered through a 501(c)(4) dark money group and then placed in the bank account of a shell company that Borges had just created.
Painter explained that it was part of $100,000 in FirstEnergy dark money that went into Borges’ shell company — and she explained that the money wasn’t just for Borges’ personal enrichment.
“He also used that money to further the goals of the enterprise,” she said, according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Just two sentences later, the federal prosecutor added, “And included in those donations was a $10,000 donation to Dave Yost on October 15th, 2019, during the (repeal) referendum period using money that had been funneled to (Borges) from Generation Now.”
Generation Now was the dark money group that was used to launder $60 million in FirstEnergy dollars to support the corrupt bailout scheme and was later indicted by the feds and subsequently pleaded guilty.
Not talking
The scandal broke in July 2021 when the FBI arrested Borges, former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and three others. When it did, Yost donated the contribution he’d gotten from Borges to charity.
But as recently as last week, the Ohio Attorney General declined to say what he knew about the origins of the dark money — or what assistance he might have provided to Borges, a longtime friend and consultant who is now serving a five-year prison sentence for his role in the bailout scandal.
“Regarding the donation, Matt (Borges) had been a long-time supporter of Dave (Yost) so it is not unusual that (Borges) would have contributed to a campaign fund,” Yost spokeswoman Bethany McCorkle said in an emailed response to detailed questions about the contribution’s origins and whether Yost believed it was in exchange for anything he’d done. “After Borges was indicted, AG Yost donated that money to a human trafficking organization to help survivors.”
Last year, Yost had been named as a possible witness in Borges’ trial and Yost’s office used that as a reason not to comment on messages presented in court in which his name appeared. Ultimately, the AG never took the stand in the case, which also resulted in a 20-year sentence for Householder.
Yost hasn’t been named as a potential witness in any criminal proceeding related to the scandal — much less gagged by a judge. But his office is saying the fact that he might be called in the future is reason not to comment on the role Ohio’s top cop played in the protection of a bailout law that was fueled by $61 million in corporate bribes.
“Mr. Borges is appealing his sentence — if he is granted an appeal, there would be a new trial and AG Yost may again be on the witness list for the prosecution,” McCorkle said last week.
Center stage
In February, Yost went from the periphery of the bailout drama to a central player when he filed state charges against FirstEnergy’s two top executives when the bailout was conceived and passed. Also charged in the case was Sam Randazzo, Gov. Mike DeWine’s nominee to be Ohio’s top utility regulator.
The state indictment revealed a decade’s worth of shady, previously unknown dealings between the executives and Randazzo, who died by suicide in April. In addition, Yost filed separate state charges against Householder in March.
McCorkle, Yost’s spokeswoman, cited these or any potential cases as a reason for the attorney general not to discuss what he knew and did regarding the corrupt bailout at a time he when was reportedly dining with one of the conspirators, rejecting repeal language and receiving $10,000 in dark money that originated with the utility that financed the conspiracy.
“If Mr. Borges, or another defendant, chooses to assert any of these allegations when it’s his, her, or their turn to go to trial, we will properly and decisively address them in court (through) evidence, argument, and testimony,” McCorkle said. “Giving Mr. Borges, or any other defendant, a preview of what we would present makes no sense legally or strategically.”
Yost is widely expected to run for governor in 2026. It remains to be seen whether he’ll see a need to explain to the public his role in the historic scandal between now and then.
But his involvement was sufficient for federal prosecutors to spend significant time on it as they tried to leave a final impression with the jury at the end of a six-week trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Painter described how Yost had two calls with Householder about the bailout and how Householder then deleted the call logs. She also described how Borges lobbied Yost to interpret the bailout as legally being a tax and thus exempt from a voter-initiated veto.
And she paraphrased a June 26, 2019 text Borges sent to co-conspirator Juan Cespedes. He said he “had dinner with Yost and put the (repeal) referendum issue on his radar,” Painter said.
Then she quoted Borges: “Don’t repeat this. But (Yost) said, ‘I would be out front opposing this if it weren’t for FirstEnergy support and your involvement.’ He thinks the issue is bad policy but he wants to be supportive. If there’s any way that the law will allow him to reject the language, he will do it.”
Then the federal prosecutor shifted to what Ohio’s top law enforcement officer actually did.
“And what did he do, what did Attorney General Yost do? He rejected the initial petition language,” Painter said. “And (one of the repeal organizers) testified that that initial rejection, it cost them 36 days out of that 90-day period to collect signatures and that was a significant impediment to their efforts.”
