On November 6, Trump pardoned Tennessee’s former house speaker, Glen Casada, and his former chief of staff Cade Cothren.
In 2020, Casada hatched a scheme to steal $50,000 in taxpayer money via a mailer program intended for lawmakers. Cothren helped by listing “a fake name on tax documents for a political consulting firm that received the funds.”
Cothren was to serve two and a half years in prison prior to the pardon.
Pardons are typically given to those that have demonstrated sound moral character and genuine guilt over their actions. Casada and Cothren have exhibited neither. Casada resigned over multiple scandals, including one in which he sent sexually perverse texts about women to Cothren. Cothren also sent perverse, “racist and drug-fueled texts;” he had used cocaine in a state legislative office during his previous employment.
The White House repeated the same lie, devoid of evidence, that it employed to justify prior pardons of corrupt officials: that the Justice Department of former President Joe Biden was overzealous. It also stated that the Casada-Cothren scheme resulted in a net profit loss of about $5,000, as if that removes the criminality of the scheme.
In March, Trump pardoned another corrupt Tennessee lawmaker.
Note
On the image, Cothren is to the left, while Casada is on the right.
