Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) probe into Tennessee U.S. Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN-05) campaign filing reports is “election meddling in more than one way.”
On Friday, August 2, just one day after the Republican primary election for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District in which Ogles was on the ballot, the FBI executed a search warrant at Ogles’ home in Maury County.
Ogles confirmed in a statement at the time that the FBI executed a search warrant for his personal cell phone in an apparent investigation of his campaign filings.
In May, Ogles submitted 11 amended campaign filings with the FEC, showing that his campaign originally misstated its cash-on-hand in June 2022 by more than $290,000, as previously reported by The Tennessee Star.
Despite Ogles’ attempt to fix his campaign filings, the FBI proceeded to carry out the August 2 search warrant on the congressman’s home and further investigate his campaign filings.
In his reporting of the FBI’s probe into Ogles, Pappert (pictured above) discovered that Henry Leventis, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee who oversaw the FBI search warrant, previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney under special prosecutor Jack Smith.
“Some of [Leventis’] recent history involves the one and only Jack Smith, the special counsel who is going after former President Trump with the federal case related to his contest of the 2020 election,” Pappert explained on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“Jack Smith was actually the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee from, I believe, [2015] through [2017]. He then left for the private sector pretty much at the same time that Trump was leaving the White House. What’s interesting is Henry Leventis, the current U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee previously served under Jack Smith when he was in this position and when Jack Smith went off to the private sector and then went back into the U.S. Department of Justice to go after president Trump. Leventis got promoted and ended up getting Jack Smith’s old job,” Pappert added.
Pappert also revealed how Leventis worked at the pro-DEI Spencer Fane law firm before working under Smith.
“We’ve also now learned that there was a brief period where Henry Leventis was in the private sector himself before being appointed to lead the Middle District in Tennessee. He was at the Spencer Fane law firm, which happens to be in one of, if not the most DEI law firms that I’ve seen in the country. They claim they are 100 percent committed to it and are bragging…about hiring people based on their race to run specific offices,” Pappert said.
In regards to receiving timely information about the investigation into Ogles, Pappert said every entity he has reached out to has refused to provide answers to questions about the case, citing DOJ policy.
“So far, every law enforcement judge, every source you could imagine who would have that information has been claiming that it is sealed due to policy. It seems as though everything we know about this, before Andy Ogles came out and confirmed it himself, must have come through leaks,” Pappert said.
Pappert also noted how the leaked information about the FBI’s search warrant being executed on Ogles’ home may have come from the court itself instead of personnel associated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office or FBI.
“It could be the court itself and that is why on Friday, we reached out to the chief judge who oversees the federal district in the Middle District of Tennessee to ask, ‘Do you know who leaked this? Is there an investigation? Will the leaker be punished professionally? Will it be a criminal punishment?’ We have received no response. It seems as though there may be no interest in figuring out who leaked this,” Pappert said.
“It seems to me that they’re allowing leakers to totally run roughshod over a judge because it’s going to help the Democrats in November,” Pappert added.
Pappert went on to say that he believes Ogles is being denied due process in the FBI’s probe, which he went as far as to call “election meddling.”
“[Ogles’] due process is being denied and I would also say this is election meddling in almost more than one way because they’re doing this in such a way that it seems to be a slow drip. The voters of Middle Tennessee, I don’t believe it for a second, but let’s say Andy Ogles did something really bad with this FEC reporting. I don’t believe it, but if he did, when is the FBI going to announce this? When is the DOJ going to announce this? Three days before the election, like they waited until the day after the primary to get this far?…They’re not informing the people of Middle Tennessee the information they need. They didn’t provide the information in time for the primary. It makes you wonder exactly how long they’re going to wait as we approach the general [election],” Pappert said.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Tom Pappert” by The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Jack Smith served as the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee from 2015 to 2017.
