Andy Ogles-- Tennessee's Very Own Version Of George Santos, But, Alas, Without The Evening Gowns

Why Does The GOP Keep Electing Characters Like Ogles & Santos?

Turned onto the story by WTVF reporter Phil Williams, it was last February that we started looking carefully at greasy, far right Tennessee freshman Andy Ogles. When the reactionary Tennessee state legislature decided to steal a Democratic House seat, they sliced up Nashville and combined the pieces with backward rural parts of the state, leaving Nashville’s 715,000 with no representation in Congress. Instead, the city has 4 extremist crackpot MAGAts undermining its residents’ interests, John Rose, Mark Green, Scott DesJarlais and, worst of all, Andy Ogles. Before the incredibly unconstitutional, racist gerrymander, TN-05 had a D+17 partisan lean. It is now R+15. Ogles, who won a highly contested primary with 36.9% of the vote, beat state Sen. Heidi Campbell 123,558 (55.8%) to 93,648 (42.3%)— although Campbell kicked his ass in the Davidson County (Nashville) part of the district. Ogles comes out of the American fascist movement, having been a staffer for both the Koch Network and Club for Growth. Before being handed the new congressional district, he was a perennial candidate on the fringes of the far right. He was endorsed and financially supported by the fascistic House Freedom Caucus and the 5 extremist billionaires— Bernard Marcus,Paul Singer, Stephen Schwartzman, Antonio Gracias and Daniel Loeb— who contributed $2,750,000 to the neo-Nazi USA Freedom Fund, which spent nearly $800,000 (the most in any House race) to elect Ogles. Another neo-fascist outfit, the Conservative Americans PAC, spent $705,700 supporting Ogles. So no one was surprised when he joined the Freedom Caucus and voted against Kevin McCarthy for speaker 11 times.

Predictably, Ogles turned out to be a junior version of George Santos. “If you believe Middle Tennessee's newest congressman,” reported Phil Williams, “he's not only a businessman, he's also an economist, a nationally recognized expert in tax policy and health care, a trained police officer, even an expert in international sex crimes. But an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation discovered that Andy Ogles' personal life story is filled with exaggerations, a story that's often too good to be true.”

Ogles lied over and over that he’s an economist. “Yet, like some of the questions surrounding his controversial colleague, New York Congressman George Santos, there's little evidence that Ogles ever received any formal training in economics. His congressional bio says he obtained a degree from Middle Tennessee State University, ‘where he studied policy and economics.’ Yet, the school refused to confirm Ogles' degree, citing a provision of federal law that allows students to block the release of their educational credentials. So why would Congressman Ogles not want Tennessee voters to be able to verify that he is who he claims to be? ‘I would think that if he has a block that there must be something wrong,’ said state Sen. Heidi Campbell, a Nashville Democrat who lost to Ogles in a campaign in a district that Republicans redrew to help their own candidate. NewsChannel 5 Investigates checked and, back in 2002, Ogles' website claimed he had ‘studied foreign policy and the constitution’ at Western Kentucky University and Middle Tennessee State. There was no mention of economics… Ogles actually majored in English and Allied Language Arts.”

WTVF dug up an old résumé from 2009— two years after he graduated from MTSU— where he listed a degree in international relations, with minors in psychology and English. One top Financial Services Committee staffer told me Ogles is already standing out as the stupidest member of the committee and is already considered a joke by his fellow committee members on both sides of the aisle. “He’s a bigger idiot than Barry Loudermilk,” the staffer told me, “and that is no mean feat.”

Ogles touts his connection to supply-side economist Arthur Laffer.

His LinkedIn resume shows he once worked as "executive director" for the Laffer Center— not as an economist. That job appears to have been an administrative position. A search of the center's website shows no economic reports authored by Ogles.

The congressman's website also claims that "while working at the Laffer Center, Andy became a nationally recognized expert on tax policy and healthcare, having been featured in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily."

But a search of those sites shows only three columns he wrote, in two cases with another person, when he was a lobbyist for the conservative Americans for Prosperity— nothing independently citing him as an expert.

All three were published before he went to work at the Laffer Center.

"It might be a bit more credible if a news organization had called him and quoted him on the basis that he was a national expert," said MTSU political science professor John Vile.

Vile noted that the publications of those columns— like one predicting the imminent demise of Obamacare— might not have that much to do with Ogles' personal credentials.

"When you publish an article like this and it's under the name of your organization, you might be publishing it as much because it reflects the views of the organization as because it reflects the particular expertise of the writer," Vile explained.

Then, there are Ogles' claims to be a trained police officer and international sex crimes expert.

During one GOP debate, the candidate prefaced one answer "as a former member of law enforcement, worked in international sex crimes, specifically child trafficking...."

In another forum, he claimed, "You know, my midlife crisis, I went into law enforcement. I worked in human trafficking."

Interviewed on C-SPAN after he took office in Congress, Ogles spoke about human trafficking over the Southern border, claiming: "This is from firsthand experience of someone who worked in that space. I turned gray because of it."

Again, on the night of the State of the Union, he told C-SPAN, "You know, part of my career, I worked in human trafficking."

In fact, our investigation found Ogles was sworn in as a volunteer reserve deputy with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office in July 2009.

Records show he lost that position two years later for not meeting minimum standards, making no progress in field training and failure to attend required meetings.

"There is nothing in Ogles' training or personnel file that indicates he had any involvement in 'international sex trafficking' in his capacity as a reserve deputy," Williamson County sheriff's spokesperson Sharon Puckett told NewsChannel 5.

…Curiously, Ogles went through a contested Republican primary without his claims ever being challenged.

Just like with George Santos, Professor Vile blames a weakening of the political parties.

"One of the downsides of political parties was the notion of people meeting in smoke-filled rooms and coming to decisions, but one of the advantages was some of these sort of old timers had a better idea of, you know, people's reputation outside of the media," he said.

And, also like Santos, Ogles is a campaign finance fraudster. Perfect for the House Financial Services Committee!

Last March we were already starting to half wonder when photos of Ogles in drag would start circulating. Williams led the local media in reporting on a distinct pattern of lies and exaggerations— kind of the way it all started with Santos. For example, “When Ogles was one of the holdouts to approving McCarthy as House speaker, he claimed he was ‘an economist’— a claim he has made several times— along with other embellishments. But NewsChannel 5 in Nashville found that he had taken only one course in economics, at a community college, and received a C. Ogles first entered college in 1990 and did not get a degree until 2007.”

WTVF has kept the investigation going and yesterday Phil Williams wrote that “A nonpartisan watchdog group has asked a federal ethics agency to investigate Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles over $1 million of discrepancies in financial disclosures he was required to file with the U.S. House. The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) repeatedly cites NewsChannel 5's reporting in the complaint that was filed Tuesday with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), comparing Ogles' conduct to disgraced New York Congressman George Santos.”

"Unexplained inconsistencies in Rep. Ogles’ reported finances and allegations of him misrepresenting his background raise fundamental questions for voters about the transparency of their elected representative."

Campaign Legal Center was founded in 2002 by its current president, Trevor Potter, a former GOP commissioner on the Federal Election Commission.

The federal Office of Congressional Ethics is an independent agency created by the U.S. House of Representatives to review allegations of misconduct and, when appropriate, to refer those matters to the House Ethics Committee.

Specifically, in its complaint, the CLC notes the Maury County Republican's claim to have personally loaned $320,0000 to his 2022 campaign for Congress, "but Rep. Ogles’ financial disclosure reports do not disclose assets that would allow him to make this loan."

As NewsChannel 5 previously reported, on financial disclosures filed with the U.S. House of Representatives, Ogles did not disclose any checking or savings accounts.

In a footnote, the CLC notes that "bank accounts only must be reported in a candidate or member's financial disclosure report if they are interest bearing."

"While it is possible that Rep. Ogles has a non-interest-bearing bank account, it would be highly unlikely that such an account would contain such a substantial amount of money like the $320,000 he loaned to his campaign," it adds.

The Campaign Legal Center also urges the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate Ogles' failure to disclose a $700,000 line of credit with FirstBank that was discovered by NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

"In conclusion, the similarities between Rep. Ogles and Rep. Santos should not be ignored," the complaint argues.

How did Ogles come up with that much money to secretly funnel into his campaign? Well, again, like Santos, he's not saying, but, like Santos, Ogles is from the Putin wing of the GOP and his record in Congress has shown him serving the interests of the Kremlin, not his Tennessee constituents.