The other ‘unholy alliance’
“Corruption is a state of spiritual decadence and moral depravity arising from disobedience to the laws of God.” — 1 John 3:4
Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors indicted FirstEnergy’s former CEO and board member, Chuck Jones, and senior VP of external affairs, Michael Dowling.
According to the double indictment, Jones and Dowling directed FirstEnergy money to a network of anonymously funded nonprofits and LLCs in its $60 million bribery scheme. These seemingly independent organizations then spent that money on work intended to benefit FirstEnergy.
Last week, we explored the origin of one of those nonprofits—Consumers Against Deceptive Fees (CADFs)—and how a recently surfaced email exchange between several current and former FE staff, including the recently indicted Michael Dowling, indicates that this Cleveland nonprofit was designed to undermine the city’s executive and legislative leadership.
Though CADF is not specified in the latest indictment, a Cleveland city council investigation into FE efforts to “destabilize” the city’s legislative and executive leadership centered on this particular c4.
Opened in May 2018, the first payment CADF made was to Strategic Resource Consulting (owned by Kenn Dowell, trusted adviser to Congresswoman Shontel Brown, former applicant for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and former president of CADF).
The second payment went to Roetzel & Andress (the parent company of a consulting group whose principal, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, has been convicted of bribery for his role in the scandal).
The third payment went to Remington Road Group (a Columbus firm with Democratic ties), and the fourth payment went to Rev. Dr. Aaron Phillips and Rev. Jimmy Gates with no listed purpose.
Rev. Dr. Phillips is known to many in the Cleveland area. And as Ohio’s largest public corruption scandal in history continues to unfold, Phillips is a name that appears to come up quite often—possibly more than Dowell’s.
“You must never twist justice or show partiality. Never accept a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and corrupt the decisions of the godly.” Deuteronomy 16:19
In May 2015, about 100 demonstrators marched outside FirstEnergy’s annual shareholder meeting against its pending rate increases. This meeting was also the recently indicted Chuck Jones’ first shareholder meeting as CEO.
Jones defended a series of actions he intended to lead the company through, which consumer groups classified as a bailout—charges he denied point blank.
This “power purchase agreement,” or “not a bailout,” was the proposal to have local Ohio companies (the Illuminating Co. in Cleveland, Ohio Edison in Akron, and Toledo Edison in—you guessed it—Toledo) buy power from plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, which was described as “re-regulating.”
One of the protestors outside that meeting was Rev. Phillips, pastor of the Sure House Baptist Church:
Jones, the new and confident CEO, told shareholders he met with “a group of Cleveland ministers” both before the meeting and “over this past weekend” as “they are important customers of mine.”
Whatever those conversations entailed, opposition remained during the May 2015 shareholder meeting.
However, nearly two years later, on May 9, 2017 and June 8, 2017, Rev. Dr. Phillips, testified at the Statehouse on behalf of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition (CCC).
He spoke in favor of HB-178 and SB-128—known as the Zero Emissions Nuclear (ZEN) and considered a precursor to HB-6:
“As the senior pastor of Sure House Baptist Church in Cleveland and a member of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition (CCC), I am deeply concerned about environmental and economic issues impacting my congregation, my community and the state as a whole. Ohio’s nuclear power plants deliver important clean air benefits, keep electric rates low, and help drive the statewide economy. The Zero Emissions Nuclear Resource Program (ZEN) is in the best interest of the families I serve and I encourage you to support its approval and implementation.”
What changed Rev. Dr. Phillips' mind between that initial May 2015 shareholder meeting and the May and June 2017 state hearings?
“God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt.” Genesis 6:12
Obtained through a public records request Energy & Policy Institute's (EPI) made of a Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) audit on FirstEnergy, a series of text messages between the since-indicted Dowling and a “Mr. Hopkins,” thought to be Terry Hopkins, provides more insight into all that Jones and Dowling’s Cleveland strategy entailed.
On the cold night of February 3, 2020, almost five years ago to the day, Dowling and Mr. Hopkins were in Cleveland.
According to their texts, they intended to meet up, though what we see is a series of late-evening texts sparked by the recent news of a change of plans in the effort to reform the Cleveland city council. (More on that in a bit.)
Towards the end of the publicly available messages, Mr. Hopkins texts Dowling, “The Cleveland Clergy Coalition. WTF?”
What ensues is a conversation with serious racist undertones between two clearly corrupt men, one of whom would later have strong federal and state bribery case against him.
But their allegations also provide a glimpse into a painful game that has been thriving in the shadows of Cuyahoga for a very long time:
According to the Cleveland Clergy Coalition’s website, whose current executive director is the Rev. Dr. Phillips, it is a “representation of most of the African-American Clergy organizations in the Greater Cleveland area.”
Its mission is “to provide services, education, programs, outreach, job opportunities and advocacy to and for the African-American Community.” But Dowling and Mr. Hopkins seemed to characterize this group differently, specifically with the help of a segment from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Even though Dowling appears to be on a one-way ticket to the “vowels of hell,” it is interesting to consider their text conversation in light of a newly released analysis of PUCO's audit of FirstEnergy's HB6 political spending, which shows CADF certainly wasn’t the only nonprofit making bank off of FirstEnergy.
Among the top of the list? The Cleveland Clergy Coalition for a whopping $100,000:
May God help us all…
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mf said “vowels of hell”
Mr Hopkins changed the group chat name to “vowels of hell”