Va. Utility’s CEO Deceived Employees About Anti-Youngkin Donations

Over the weekend, at the popular Virginia political blog Bacon’s Rebellion, NLPC’s Paul Chesser updated readers about the “despicable” political activity by utility Dominion Energy against now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin in last year’s election.

Last month Chesser asked Dominion’s lead independent director to investigate the company and CEO Bob Blue (pictured above) about $250,000 in donations to the Democrat-controlled Accountability Virginia PAC, whose ads pretended to be right-leaning while trying to convince likely Youngkin voters to think twice about supporting him.

From Chesser’s write-up for Bacon’s Rebellion:

…the degree of deceit has even more to do with the timeline of the contributions rather than the aggregate amount…

 

There’s the matter of Blue’s duplicity…Blue sent a memo on Oct. 18 to Dominion employees that on its face looked like a mea culpa about the utility’s support [for the PAC].

 

“Based on our own disclosures, two news stories highlighted activities of the Accountability Virginia PAC that we would not approve or knowingly support,” the CEO wrote, according to the Times-Dispatch. “Although familiar with the Accountability Virginia PAC sponsors, we failed to vet sufficiently the scope of their intended activities. In as much, we have asked that our contributions be returned… We will not be giving to organizations of this nature in the future.”

 

That sentiment might have been believable, but on the same day – Oct. 18 – Blue and Baine each sent Accountability Virginia PAC $5,000 personal contributions, and Murray donated $2,500. The alleged distaste of Dominion’s association for the PAC did not extend to the CEO and his lieutenants.

Why would Blue, a former political advisor to previous Democrat Gov. (now Senator) Mark Warner, give a big personal donation to the fishy PAC on the same day he told his employees the group’s activities were disreputable?

That, and more, are what NLPC would like for Dominion’s lead independent director, Robert Spilman, Jr., to find out with an investigation.

Federal Election Commission records show the funds were never returned to Dominion Energy. Accountability Virginia PAC shut down in December.

NLPC is a shareholder in Dominion Energy.