Stockard on the Stump: Jan. 6 probe creeps into Tennessee gubernatorial race

Items in rearview mirror are closer than they appear: U.S. Rep. John Rose took a dig at U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, his opponent in the 2026 Repubian gubernatorial primary, over a clause she sponsored in a federal government funding measure. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Tennessee gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. John Rose is taking a dig at the frontrunner, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, with a bill passed to keep senators from suing the feds for half-a-million bucks.

Rose, a Cookeville Republican, said in an X post Nov. 12, that the Senate sneaked a “poison pill” into the government funding measure enabling senators whose phone records were searched without their knowledge in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot to file suit for $500,000 each.

“This is exactly why Americans despise Washington,” Rose said.

He added that it was “wrong” for the Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden to target Republicans over the Jan. 6 incident. “But that doesn’t make it right for any senator to cash in retroactively at taxpayers’ expense,” he said.

WBIR reported that Rose filed legislation to block the measure and that Blackburn planned to sue the government. The House approved a repeal this week, but the Senate isn’t expected to vote on it.

Blackburn was one of eight U.S. senators, including Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, who had their phone records accessed without notification when special counsel Jack Smith investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Asked for comment this week, Blackburn spokesperson Joey Chester pointed the Lookout to a post she made Nov. 13 on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “I support the effort to repeal the Arctic Frost provision in the government funding bill.” The name refers to the Department of Justice investigation into the riot.

“As I have said previously, this fight is not about the money. It is about holding the left accountable for the worst weaponization of government in our nation’s history.”

Asked whether Blackburn initially planned to use the new provision to sue the government over phone records, Chester declined to answer.

But Blackburn told Just the News, a conservative news site, she is planning to sue the Department of Justice and FBI for invasion of her free speech and privacy rights as a member of Congress. The move wouldn’t conflict with her opposition to the Arctic Frost provision, which allows the senators to seek monetary damages. 

Hagerty and Blackburn, who changed their stances five years ago and voted to certify Biden’s election after the Jan. 6 riot, called it a “shocking day of lawlessness” in which she and her colleagues “watched in horror as rioters breached the security of both Houses of Congress and inflicted significant property damage upon those historical halls.”

In a joint statement, they said the nation would “rise above the chaos” that took place at the Capitol. 

In March, Blackburn also said those who defended the Capitol should be recognized for heroism. Several Capitol law enforcement officers died as a result of the insurrection, one that day and four others who later committed suicide.

Yet Blackburn has said nothing about President Trump’s move to pardon those who stormed the building. Trump also went on a pardoning binge in recent weeks, letting former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his ex-chief of staff, Cade Cothren, off the hook for corruption convictions, keeping them from serving prison time.

Another Republican gubernatorial candidate, state Rep. Monty Fritts of Kingston, said he agrees with Blackburn that the Jan. 6 probe was a “horrible weaponization” of the federal government.

“But I think it was a horrible thing by those senators who put that language in that they could enrich themselves at the expense of the U.S. citizen because of the misdeeds of the Department of Justice,” Fritts said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is the only one who said he would take advantage of the provision, though the others signed on. Fritts said he was glad to hear Blackburn and Hagerty won’t.

“Surely to goodness, they don’t need $500,000 of our money,” he said.

Don’t call me Shirley.

Saving a grassy cross

Longshot gubernatorial candidate Fritts appears to have saved a grassy cross cut into a Kingston interstate median by persuading the state not to mow it.

Kingston personnel had been cutting off-ramp exit medians along I-40 and left what Fritts described as a “discreet” cross in the landscape. Someone complained about it, and the Department of Transportation was about to cut the grass until city officials told them they didn’t want it mowed, according to Fritts.

The Kingston Republican recently posted a video on X, formerly Twitter, calling the state mowing plan the sign of a “godless” mind-set.

“After wiser minds came together, I think they realized they didn’t have any business doing that,” Fritts said. 

Fritts contended the cross is offensive only to “people who are lost” spiritually.

The candidate said a “centralized and overreaching” state government in Nashville is becoming “more and more like D.C.” and that one person with the Transportation Department told him the cross was comparable to graffiti spray-painted on bridges.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, which is responsible for mowing interstate medians, did not respond this week to questions about the matter.

Figures didn’t add up

The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance is inviting former Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson to a January hearing to explain discrepancies in her campaign finance reports.

Hanson, who caused a stir by inviting a white supremacist group to intimidate people at a Franklin City Council meeting, is supposed to tell the Registry board why some of her reports from 2023 didn’t quite add up. 

The Registry initially referred the matter to the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office after Peggy Kingsbury of Franklin filed a sworn complaint alleging Hanson’s reports contained inaccurate information.

An investigation found campaign receipts and a personal loan totaling $132,753 on her reports but that her campaign expenditures, including repayment of a personal loan, totaled $158,830. That would have left her campaign nearly $27,000 in the red, but the reports showed a final balance of $73,363, according to documents.

Franklin official Gabrielle Hanson appears to launch mayor campaign sans legal filings

A Williamson County Election Commission official told the DA’s investigator the report Hanson filed was a “mess,” with white-out all over it. The campaign insisted on using paper, instead of filing online. Another staffer advised that the numbers didn’t compute.

Hanson appointed herself as treasurer in July 2023, which is allowable but can pose problems with documenting financials while campaigning, an investigator reported. Her attorney told the DA’s investigator that nobody would serve as her treasurer after her alleged connection to white nationalists was reported.

Other reports from January and March 2024, which weren’t filed with the state until July 2024 showed a forgiven loan balance at $18,810. But because of the sworn complaint, an accountant’s review and the “discovery of monies” that weren’t noted as received, a final report was amended and showed the forgiven loan balance as $49,197.

The Registry board, which also can be forgiving if folks throw themselves prostrate and beg for mercy, could levy a civil penalty against Hanson. But more than likely, all will be forgiven, only a waste of her money.

More late filings

Five years after paying a $22,000 settlement fee to the Registry for multiple shortcomings, state Rep. Joe Towns is set to appear again before the campaign finance watchdog to explain why his filings are late again.

Towns, a veteran Memphis Democrat, was fortunate in that the board agreed to reduce penalties totaling $66,000 when it voted via email to cut him some slack in April 2020, as the COVID pandemic hit. 

That came after Bill Young took over as executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance and despite Towns’ declaration that he wouldn’t pay one more “copper cent” to the Registry. Towns described himself as the “prodigal son” coming home when he made his case to the Registry board that spring.

Yet he’ll have to pay a $250 civil penalty for a late filing from 2024, and he faces hearings for two other discrepancies.

Five years ago, Towns said he was protesting what he felt were heavy-handed decisions by the Registry board. It’s not clear why his filings are coming up late once more, though he said earlier this year he’d been short on staff after his longtime assistant left. He didn’t respond to a phone call or text message.

Oh well, as my golf friends would say, “He must hate money.”

“They never did like mama’s homemade dress / Papa’s bank book wasn’t big enough.” Bob Dylan – “Tangled Up in Blue”