Image Credit: Tennessee Attorney General / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
An investigation into an ethics complaint against Tennessee State Senate candidate Bobby Harshbarger is still ongoing, according to State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
During a Regional Fireside Chat event hosted by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, Skrmetti discussed a number of topics, including the continuing investigation of the ethics complaint filed back in April.
Harshbarger, who is the son of Congresswoman Diana Harshbarger, won the Republican primary for the Tennessee Senate seat representing District 4. The primary race against incumbent Senator Jon Lundberg was costly and became heated at times.
Complaints involve the possibility of campaign finance violations, as well as potential collusion after voters received a series of text messages criticizing Lundberg. Those texts were sent from a political action committee, East Tennessee Conservatives PAC.
In the beginning, the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance Board dealt with the complaint, but it was eventually transferred to Skrmetti’s office for further investigation into the claims.
Although Skrmetti expressed concern about continuing future investigations, it appears they are continuing with the complaint against Harshbarger. Skrmetti said there is no timeline for when that investigation would be finished.
“This is still a pretty new role for my office,” Skrmetti said. “We’ve only done one of these so far.”
Skrmetti claims there is value in going ahead with the investigation, even though Harshbarger has already claimed a victory in the primary.
“It’s really important that people trust the system,” Skrmetti said. “It’s really important that when we have laws, they’re fairly enforced. I think it’s always important to have transparency and accountability.”
A final decision will not be made by Skrmetti’s office. Instead, they will report their findings to the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, who will in turn, send that information to the Registry of Election Finance Board for a final determination.
One Response
The people in Senate District 4 have been waiting for years to get rid of Lundberg. Lundberg and the Governor totally underestimated the dissatisfaction that voters in our district had regarding Lundberg and THAT is why he lost. Glad to see that this will be settled once and for all but it would have been nice to include a statement by the accused in this article.