Long thread ahead. Here's my breakdown of the criminal complaint against Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder et al

First, some background info about nonprofit and political tax classifications.. here's also a link w some brief explanations - https://www.churchlawcenter.com/non-profit/differences-between-a-pac-and-a-501c4-social-welfare-organization/

And some "Definitions" as described through the complaint.

**For the sake of simplicity, assume I am saying “alleged(ly)” at the beginning of each sentence of this thread.**

It's worth noting just how planned out this was. Householder had been executing his "become speaker" plan since 2016, 3 years before becoming speaker.

So. First Energy gave $$ to Gen now, which was controlled by Householder but not explicitly linked to him. It was classified as a 501c4 but functioned as a PAC, w no real mission other than to give $$ to Householder, his friends, and people who agreed to do his bidding

And Generation Now didn't seem to have real donors other than First Energy. They made quarterly payments of $250k

They picked 501c4 as their vehicle specifically BECAUSE of its secrecy. The "mission" on record was promote "social welfare & economic development purposes"

Clark is on record saying, "A c4 is a secret. Nobody knows the money goes to the Speaker's account"

Other fronts included another c4 org known as the "coalition" and a PAC. The "Coalition" was just a pass through entity to their PAC.

So it’s not like, a gray area of the law, it’s pretty straight forward money laundering. hiding a bribe to Householder as a contribution to a nonprofit that doesn’t disclose donors, & using that nonprofit to hide campaign contributions from Householder to other candidates

So step 1 was getting a team-Householder constituency. Householder pretty much directly contributed to and supported campaigns in exchange for loyalty and hb6 support.

Notice how the expenditures are described as being district specific rather than candidate specific. This is to avoid looking like a payoff, or like a campaign contribution, and instead just look like general political spending.

The benefit to the other elected officials was of course the contribution, but also, not having Householder intentionally "fuck them over later" for failing to show loyalty.

Ok so Bailout Sqaud is in place. Next step is getting legislation through. First Energy gave the money to Generation Now explicitly so Householder would pass HB 6. Pretty direct quid pro quo, aka, bribe. Pretty explicit illegal actions for a c4 and for an elected official.

First Energy gave so much money that the Enterprise called them "the bank" and referred to their money as Monopoly money.

First Energy did this because, as explicitly explained by one of the defendants, spending $60mill over the course of 3 years on bribes would get them $1.3 BILLION in benefits. Pretty good investment, huh?

To get the bill through the house, Householder made a NEW COMMITTEE full of yes men whose sole purpose was to create and pass HB6. That way, he didn’t have to try to get it through a bipartisan committee or fight against potential amendments that could water down the impact.

and I am hitting send now even though I am not done because I just got anxiety that my computer will freeze and I will have to start this all over.

They also coupled this maneuvering with an extensive PR campaign to both pressure legislators and convince the public this was something other than what it was. Ohioans will I’m sure remember how you couldn’t even turn on the TV in late 2019 without seeing 5 ads about HB6.

They focused their pitch on “jobs” and “support our troops” (what?!) because of course they did. The campaign focused on these messages because, and I QUOTE: “polling shows the more we explain it, the worse it does"

Even Householder got sick of seeing the ads.

It’s worth noting that it was really obvious to advocates what was happening even in real time. @CommonCauseOhio published a report in MAY 2019 outlining pretty much exactly what this complaint alleges. So, LISTEN TO PRO-DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES! https://www.commoncause.org/ohio/page/connecting-the-dots-first-energy-political-profits-and-utility-policy/

The extensive media blitz didn’t stop all the blowback and a citizen initiative to overturn the bailout began to form. This really, really worried the Enterprise.

"it is so important that they are not successful... what we need to make them realize is that you (householder) can't be fucked with"

"It sends the message... if you attack a member, we're going to fucking rip your dick off"

The hurdle to get stuff on the ballot through signature collection is really high. Lots of signatures specifically from a bunch of different counties. A lot of campaigns that can afford to, hire companies who will do the signature collecting.

So the Enterprise bought off the top 9-15 national companies who do that work by hiring them to “not work.” That way, the company still could not be hired by their opponents due to a conflict of interest.

The campaign to get the bailout referendum continued on. People who circulate petitions register online with the Secretary of State’s office. Obviously, this is for transparency. The Enterprise used that registration to run background checks on everyone collecting signatures.

They did this so they could say "Criminals are coming to your door" in ad campaigns. It’s unclear how they were accessing the database. I don’t know much about this but the phrasing seems to imply this is not a published registry, and there might have been more nefarious behavior

The Enterprise promoted conspiracy theories, including that “criminals are showing up to your door” and “Communist China is taking over.” The ads were SURREAL in the blatant race baiting and falsehoods. Again, this was obvious at the time, but the financial path wasn’t obvious.

They then just kept attempting to pick off circulators so the campaign couldn't reach their signature thresholds. Remember when they asked you to report on neighbors who were getting petitions signed? They followed them around, harassed them, and tried to give them money to stop.

The enterprise hired private investigators to dig up dirt and “spy” on the people collecting signatures. They still couldn’t totally figure out how the signature collection was going. So they offered to bribe someone running the campaign to get insider info.

The bribe included a fat check and… paying for a plane ticket? Campaign worker turned it down, and reported it to FBI. FBI asked him to move forward with accepting the bribe while they recorded the interaction.

I want to point out, getting something on the ballot is 1 of 2 steps. They still have to get the majority of Ohio voters to support it during the vote. The Enterprise knew if the campaign could get over hurdle 1, the voters would almost certainly vote to overturn the bail out.

In case you're curious, the bribes also paid for Householder's residence in Florida, personal legal bills, and some pretty whopping payoffs to the rest of the "enterprise" membership team.

In case you're wondering, yes, the enterprise tried to use this crappy strategy to get other shady industries on board. Payday lenders, for example. And yes, they did explicitly call it, PAY TO PLAY.

So ya. Remember when Householder had an ad about how he was gonna drain the swamp by shooting his TV with a rifle while in full camo? Well, he might just make good on that promise, he’s just unfortunately also a main source of the swamp water.