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CheckGate Day 2: Republicans See the Light, But Will They Return the Cash?

09.17.2020

And we still don’t know who has the checks

Since the Cincinnati Enquirer broke the story yesterday that FirstEnergy doled out $158,000 in the days before Larry Householder was arrested, Republicans have been falling over themselves to claim they never received the money. In fact, they now say, it’s offensive to even think they’d take such dirty cash. How dare we! 

This includes GOP Ohio Supreme Court Justices Judi French and Sharon Kennedy. Both now say they didn’t receive the max-out checks FirstEnergy PAC reported sending them and, if the check does show up, they’d return them. But the question is, will they return the rest of their FirstEnergy cash? French has $15,350 from FirstEnergy’s PAC and executives. Kennedy has at least $28,530. 

“After years of taking dirty money, these Republican claim they see the light – but is this just an election year conversion?” asked ProgressOhio Managing Director Michael McGovern. “Will Justices French and Kennedy return all the dirty money they’ve gotten, or are they all talk?”

Voters deserve to know what these Republicans are going to do with their dirty cash. But we also need to know where these FirstEnergy checks went.

We know who claims they did not get the money, but who did?

Did the FBI pick up Householder or Cespedes before they could deliver their dirty cash?

Are the checks under a pile on Speaker Cupp’s desk?

This story seemed shady when it was broken by the Enquirer, but it keeps getting shadier as Republicans and FirstEnergy can’t get their story straight about where exactly the money went.