In the second U.S. Senate debate, Democrat Phil Bredesen continued to mislead voters on the facts, the Tennessee Republican Party said in a new video Friday.
The video is available to watch here.
U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) put former Governor Phil Bredesen on the defensive Wednesday night at the second debate between the two candidates, The Tennessee Star reported.
Blackburn started out strong at the debate held in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee’s Howard Baker Center, and Bredesen never recovered.
Bredesen claims there was just one “individual” where the investigation notes were shredded. But there were at least three high profile cases in which a member of his administration was named, the Tennessee Republican Party said in a statement.
According to the Tennessee GOP, citing reports from The Tennessean, those people were:
- Mack Cooper, top lobbyist (Brad Schrade, “Investigator Shreds Notes in Bredesen Aide’s Demotion,” The Tennessean, 5/12/05)
- Quenton White, State Correction Commissioner (Brad Schrade and Christian Bottorff, “Prison Chief Quits Amid Scrutiny,” The Tennessean, 7/14/05)
- Dave Hensley, fundraiser and state employee (Brad Schrade, “Wife Kept Deputy Governor In Touch; He Remained A Channel For Promotion Requests,” The Tennessean, 2/26/06)
Bredesen claims that the individual (presumably Cooper) was “gone the next day,” but neglects to say he considered rehiring Cooper shortly thereafter and that Cooper was later hired by the Tennessee Regulatory Authority during Bredesen’s administration. (Theo Emery, “TRA Hires Demoted Bredesen Lobbyist,” The Tennessean, 8/14/08)
Scott Golden, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party, said, “Phil Bredesen needs to come clean on his shady record covering up sexual harassment and stop misleading voters. He has routinely disparaged the contemporaneous reporting by the Associated Press and The Tennessean, and he needs to be held accountable.”
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
