Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett was charged with a DUI after attending the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Coffee County on Friday.
According to The Tennessee Journal, the secretary was at the event “from Friday afternoon through around 11:30 p.m. when he was stopped by Tullahoma police. He was given a blood test and charged with DUI.”
“Driving Under the Influence is a serious matter, and I regret the circumstances that led to my arrest,” Hargett said in a statement that he gave to The Tennessee Journal. “I respect law enforcement and will trust the legal process as we move forward.”
According to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website, “Tre Hargett was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to serve as Tennessee’s 37th secretary of state in 2009 and re-elected in 2013, 2017, and 2021. Secretary Hargett is the chief executive officer of the Department of State with oversight of more than 300 employees. He also serves on 16 boards and commissions, on two of which he is the presiding member. The services and oversight found in the Secretary of State’s office reach every department and agency in state government.”
The website adds that, “The Tennessee Secretary of State has oversight of the Department of State. The Secretary of State is one of three Constitutional Officers elected by the General Assembly, in joint session. The Secretary of State is elected to a four-year term.”
“The constitution mandates that it is the secretary’s duty to keep a register of the official acts and proceedings of the governor, and, when required, to “lay same, all papers, minutes and vouchers relative thereto, before the General Assembly,” it says.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
Background Photo “Courtroom” by Karen Neoh. CC BY 2.0.
Will this be another case of ” laws are for the dirt people ” ?
I almost feel bad for the guy. He was handed a comfortable state job from the age of 27 through his dad who was a Kurt Winstead like “General” in the Weekend Warrior Brigade. Transitions from the state legislature to another state job to finally the Secretary of State job that he could have retired from and not had to work a day in his life. But, he has to get drunk and drive at a setting that no one over the age of 30 should attend in the first place. Sad, really.
Oops!
He’s too old to be acting like a stupid kid at bonnaroo! He needs to resign along with a lot of others..
Didn’t the head of the Tennessee Highway Patrol say (or rather drawl) on TV a few years ago “If you drink and drive in Tennessee, you WILL go to jail”? If you are Important People, you just won’t be there long, I guess. I hope he pulled a Dave Cooley and gave them his business card so that they would “know how to contact him”.
What a stupid, arrogant decision this was on his part! He had to know that the Tullahoma police are sitting outside that festival just waiting on someone they can pull over for drunk driving! Did he think he was “too important” to be pulled over? How embarrassing for the State!
Seems like a fast resignation is in order. He now has no credibility if he had any before.
Oops!