Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee was already one of Congress’ more controversial members when things took a turn for the worse in the fall of 2023. WTVF, the CBS affiliate in Nashville, reported that the congressman’s finance reports showed he had made a $320,000 personal loan to his campaign. That might not have been especially problematic — candidates often make these kinds of loans — were it not for the fact that Ogles’ financial disclosures suggested he didn’t have $320,000.
Months later, the GOP lawmaker effectively conceded that his earlier claims weren’t true — he said he’d actually loaned his campaign $20,000, not $320,000 — though it remained an open question where Ogles received the rest of the money. It was against this backdrop that The Tennessean reported: The same report added, “Ogles’ office has not returned a request for comment.” If the Ethics Committee follows suit, it would not be the only investigation Ogles is facing: As an Axios report noted, the Republican also “disclosed last year that the FBI seized his cellphone and personal email as part of an apparent federal investigation into his finances.” None of this, however, stopped his constituents from re-electing Ogles to a second term in the 2024 elections. Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the ethics probe, but the larger problem for Ogles is his pattern of apparent deceptions. For those who might benefit from a refresher, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point. It was a couple of years ago when the congressman first faced allegations that he’d wildly inflated his résumé. WTVF uncovered quite a few instances in which the Tennessee Republican falsely described himself as an economist, falsely boasted about his law enforcement career, and even exaggerated his work at a nonprofit organizatio