AP: Firm worked for Cordray's agency, then campaign

COLUMBUS (AP) — An advertising and media firm to which Ohio gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray's agency gave government work while he was a federal official now is doing political work for him.

Records reviewed by The Associated Press show Washington-based GMMB recently has been making Ohio ad buys for Democrat Cordray's gubernatorial campaign against Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine. The two are locked in a high-profile fight for the office Republican Gov. John Kasich vacates in January due to term limits.

GMMB's political work for Cordray, a Democrat who is a former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, follows Republican criticism that the bureau's decision to hire the firm under Cordray's watch was politically motivated.

GMMB was the lead advertising agency for the successful presidential bids of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. The Democratic former president is scheduled to campaign for Cordray in Cleveland today.

"The whole thing is peculiar," said Matthew Henderson, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican who questioned the contract during a hearing in April. "Why was former director Cordray spending so much on a PR firm he would eventually hire to run his campaign for governor? And why was a government agency that was created to protect consumers and prosecute fraud spending a higher percentage on PR than a car brand like Chevy?"

Cordray's campaign said there's nothing improper about the firm's work for the government or the campaign. At the time it was hired by the federal consumer bureau, the agency was working to raise its pro-consumer profile among average Americans.

"Rich Cordray is proud of the work he did at the CFPB to take on predatory lenders and put $12 billion back into the pockets of 30 million Americans who had been cheated or mistreated," said spokesman Mike Gwin. "It's unsurprising that those same powerful interests are now using bogus and debunked smears to try to misrepresent Rich's record of standing up for middle class families."po

The federal Office of Inspector General reported in June that costs tied to GMMB's contract with the consumer bureau grew from the original estimated value of $11.5 million to $43.8 million from August 2013 to February 2018. Inspectors said the bureau could have better managed the contract and they urged stronger controls be put in place.