GOP lawmaker admits lie about $320K campaign loan: 'Used the stillborn death of a child'

Republican Rep. Andy Ogles, who was first elected to Congress via Tennessee's 5th Congressional District in 2022, is seeking a second term in 2024. Much of the controversy surrounding Ogles has involved his far-right positions, which have ranged from false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump to saying that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should face treason charges.

The latest Ogles controversy, however, isn't policy-related, but rather, involves campaign finance matters.

According to Phil Williams, a reporter for WTVF Channel 5 News in Nashville, Ogles "filed 11 amendments to his campaign finance reports Wednesday, (May 22), acknowledging that his claims for the last two years to have loaned $320,000 to his campaign were not true."

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"This comes less than six months after an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation that questioned whether the Maury County Republican's campaign reports were accurate," Williams explains. "Despite having reported making the $320,000 personal loan, Ogles' personal financial disclosures did not show any substantial investments — not even a savings account."

Williams adds, "On the 11 amendments filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, revising reports dating back to April 2022, Ogles says that he actually loaned his campaign $20,000, instead of the $320,000 that he had previously claimed."

The WTVF reporter notes that on January 9, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) — a nonpartisan watchdog group — filed an Ogles-related complaint with the U.S. Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

That complaint, addressed to OCE Chairman Paul Vinovich and OCE Co-Chairman Mike Barnes, read, "The expulsion of Representative George Santos for filing false financial disclosure statements and other ethics violations demonstrates why investigations of significant discrepancies in a candidate's financial reporting are warranted. 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."

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Williams notes that WTVF's investigation "discovered that" Ogles "had used the stillborn death of a child to raise nearly $25,000 for a children's burial garden that was never built."

According to Williams, "Ogles has refused to provide evidence of what he did with the money."