Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee was already one of the more controversial members of Congress when things took a turn for the worse in the fall of 2023.
Nashville's CBS affiliate WTVF reported that the congressman's financial reports showed he had made a $320,000 personal loan to his campaign. That wouldn't have been particularly problematic — candidates often make these types of loans — were it not for the fact that Ogles' financial disclosures suggested he didn't have $320,000.
Months later, the Republican lawmaker effectively admitted that his earlier claims were untrue — he said he had actually loaned his campaign $20,000, not $320,000 — although it remained an open question where Ogles received the rest of the money.
It was against this backdrop that The Tennessean reported:
Following a preliminary investigation, an independent federal agency has recommended that the US House Ethics Committee conduct a full investigation into US Representative Andy Ogles' campaign finances, focusing on a $320,000 contribution reported by Ogles' 2022 congressional campaign. The Office of Congressional Ethics made the recommendation [last] week. Ogles and his wife did not cooperate with the agency's preliminary investigation and the office is recommending that the couple be subpoenaed as part of the investigation.
The same report added: “Ogles' office did not return a request for comment.”
If the Ethics Commission follows suit, this wouldn't be the only investigation Ogles faces: As an Axios report noted, the Republican also announced last year that the FBI seized his cell phone and personal email as part of an apparent federal investigation into his finances. .”
None of this, however, stopped his voters from re-electing Ogles to a second term in the 2024 elections.
Time will tell what, if any, results from the ethics investigation, but the bigger problem for Ogles is his pattern of apparent deceptions. For those who might benefit from a refresher, let's revisit our previous coverage and see how we got to this point.
A few years ago, the congressman first faced accusations that he had grossly inflated his resume. WTVF has uncovered quite a few examples in which the Tennessee Republican falsely described himself as an economist, falsely bragged about his career in law enforcement and even exaggerated his work at a nonprofit.
After ignoring the controversy for a short time, Ogles' spokesperson eventually told Fox News Digital that he had simply “shortened” his resume “for the sake of brevity,” which was an odd response to evidence that the Republican lawmaker had blatantly false made. claims.
When WTVF returned to the topic, additional details emerged that made matters worse: Ogles also failed to tell the truth about his academic background — including his degree — and he falsely claimed to have graduated from the business school at Vanderbilt.
Shortly thereafter, The Washington Post made matters worse for Ogles, noting that the Republican “exaggerated or fabricated” his service on several corporate boards and claiming to have run a consulting firm that “is not reflected in corporate records of Tennessee'.
The same report showed that Ogles said his company represented “Fortune 500 companies,” but there was also no evidence to support this.
Just in case that wasn't enough, Ogles used a photo of his stillborn baby to raise money for a project he called “Lincoln's Place” at the time. The Republican eventually raised tens of thousands of dollars intended for a children's burial ground, but for all intents and purposes it was never built, and as WTVF reported, “Ogles has refused to provide evidence of what he did with the money.”
In other words, the congressman's ethics controversy isn't his only ongoing mess.
This message updates our related previous reporting.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
