DeWine’s Taxpayer Theft

DeWine has used the Attorney General office for political purposes, spending taxpayer money on useless follies while ignoring real corruption as Ohio’s top cop

Attorney General Mike DeWine might have spent almost $7 million beating back Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor in the GOP gubernatorial primary, but that number doesn’t even include the millions of taxpayer dollars DeWine has spent to support his political ambitions.

All politicians politick – make overly-grandiose speeches, hold press conferences to try to get their name in the paper, write laws they know will never pass. But none in Ohio have committed more taxpayer money to his or her political rise than Mike DeWine, who has consistently chased pointless lawsuits knowing that they would fail — but spent untold hours of public employee time and untold millions pursuing them for the newspaper headlines and to feed a GOP base hungry for conspiracy theories and empty, symbolic gestures.

DeWine’s most-pandering waste of money was his attempt to spread defamatory lies about Planned Parenthood, after a 5-month long investigation into the organization literally turned up nothing. DeWine’s comments were so baseless that Ohio actually had to reimburse the organization for their legal fees. That doesn’t even include the millions DeWine has spent trying to defund Planned Parenthood, despite judges again and again over the past two years declaring the law unconstitutional.

But DeWine doesn’t care; his name is in the press, and his base loves all the conspiracy theories he spews. That’s why he’s going to keep appealing this blatantly unconstitutional law, and it’s why he spent millions fighting against affordable healthcare. Undoubtedly he’ll use the governorship and your money to prepare for a 2024 presidential run.

DeWine’s habit of allocating state resources for self-serving issues has a direct impact on public safety.. Drug test backlogs are so bad that defendants are going free; a judge even had someone charged with possessing methamphetamine write DeWine a thank-you note. As DeWine continues to focus on anything that will get him a quick headline to appease his base, at least one county has been forced to take matters into their own hands and invest in their own drug lab.

Whether out of self-interest or due to all the AG resources committed to bogeymen, DeWine has been quite adept at sticking his head in the sand for vital cases. Campaign DeWine may believe Mary Taylor committed a crime when she used a state airplane for her personal use, but AG DeWine did jack about it.  

And his failure to file charges against the Oakhill criminal enterprise mastermind Anthony Cafaro was so egregious that the Youngstown Vindicator editorial board couldn’t stomach endorsing DeWine despite their refusal to endorse his opponent either.

So apparently the AG has enough money to hold press conferences and spew such egregious lies about Planned Parenthood that he pays them money, but he doesn’t have enough to clear the drug test backlog or go after one of the most notoriously corrupt businessmen in the Mahoning Valley.

Mike DeWine: running the Attorney General’s office like his own personal campaign since 2011.