Ohio House speaker arrested

FBI agents raided Republican Larry Householder’s farm in southern Ohio in connection to a $60 million bribery case. Along with Householder, the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, authorities on Tuesday arrested his adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, statehouse lobbyist Neil Clark, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges, and Juan Cespedes, co-founder of the consulting firm The Oxley Group. A judge released Householder and ordered him to stay in southern Ohio, not to talk with the other defendants, and to remove any guns from his home. The next hearing for the five defendants is set for Aug. 6.

What did they do? The case appears to center on recent bailouts for two nuclear power plants. Previous proposals to give financial support to the power plants failed. After becoming speaker, Householder pushed through a nearly $1 billion bailout plan for the plants that added a fee to all electricity bills in the state and gave the companies $150 million annually through 2026. The FBI said the defendants received money to block attempts to defeat the plan.