GOP's Moreno gets donation from bribery scandal figure

Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno accepted a large donation from an individual implicated in a dark money bribery scheme. 

According to FEC filings, Moreno took $3,300 from Brooke Bodney, a Republican fundraiser and lobbyist. Federal prosecutors say that in 2018, Bodney helped facilitate the transferring of funds from FirstEnergy, an Ohio utility company, to political groups controlled by state Rep. Larry Householder. 

Bodney asked FirstEnergy executive Mike Dowling to contribute $400,000 to Householder’s campaign. The funds were then funneled through various non-profits and PACs before finally being used to pay for an ad supporting Householder.

Bodney wasn’t directly linked to FirstEnergy’s major transfer of millions of dollars to Generation Now, a PAC established by Householder. Bodney, however, worked for Generation Now in 2017.

In exchange for the Generation Now contributions, Householder, who became Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, helped pass a $1.3 billion bailout of FirstEnergy in 2019.

Bodney lobbied state lawmakers to support the FirstEnergy bailout. 

Householder was ultimately charged with racketeering and expelled from the state legislature. In June 2023, he received a 20-year prison sentence. U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers described the ordeal as “likely the largest bribery, money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio.”

Bodney was not criminally charged.

Moreno supported removing Householder from office.

“There is no doubt that Householder must be removed from office,” Moreno wrote on Twitter. “There can be no room for corruption in government at any level in America.”

Moreno previously ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 but failed to advance past the Republican primary. He will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in the November 2024 election. 

A Moreno spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions for this story.