Tennessee Registry Orders Pardoned House Staffer To Explain Troubled PAC

Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout

*Note from The Tennessee Conservative: This article posted for informational purposes only.

By Sam Stockard [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

Tennessee’s campaign finance watchdog is ordering a former House staff member — recently pardoned after conviction in a corruption case — to testify about a political action committee he secretly formed in 2020 to sway the election.

The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance voted Tuesday to drop a subpoena against ex-chief of staff Cade Cothren and, instead, bring him in next year to explain his actions in forming the Faith Family Freedom Fund. 

Registry Chairman Tom Lawless said Cothren sent fraudulent documents, including a treasurer’s report and several emails, to the Registry when he formed the political action committee.

In 2022, the Registry board subpoenaed Cothren, who worked for former House Speaker Glen Casada, after a former girlfriend, Sydney Friedopfer, testified he asked her to form the political action committee so he could run it secretly. She also said in telephone testimony that Cothren told her she didn’t need to worry about responding to questions from the Registry.

Cothren refused to comply with the subpoena, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The Registry board sent the matter to the Attorney General’s office, which took it to Chancery Court to be enforced. It languished there until Cothren’s federal corruption case wrapped up with a pardon by President Donald Trump following a conviction on multiple charges involving a bogus campaign vendor.

Regardless of whether Cothren refuses to show up and talk to the board, it could levy a civil penalty against him. And if Cothren refuses to pay the penalty, he would be ineligible to run for a state office, according to Bill Young, executive director of the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance.

Cothren hinted recently that he would seek election following his pardon.

“And presidential pardons have absolutely no bearing on it,” Lawless said after Tuesday’s board meeting.

Cothren’s attorney, Cynthia Sherwood, told the Registry board three years ago he shouldn’t be compelled to testify in the civil matter at the same time the Williamson County District Attorney’s Office was investigating the matter. It is unclear whether that office is reviving the case.

The political action committee spent money donated in the 2020 campaign by a North Carolina restaurateur, whom the Registry was unable to locate, to pay for campaign ads attacking former Republican Rep. Rick Tillis of Lewisburg. Tillis, a political enemy of Casada’s, was defeated by Rep. Todd Warner in November 2020. Two months later, the FBI raided the offices and homes of Warner, a Chapel Hill Republican, Casada, Cothren, and former Rep. Robin Smith of Hixson. 

Smith pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks from Cothren, along with Casada, for steering House Republicans toward a campaign vendor he ran called Phoenix Solutions, which was set up in New Mexico.

Cothren and Casada received presidential pardons in early November after being sentenced to prison for their roles in the political corruption case. Smith, who testified for federal prosecutors, is to serve a short prison stint but is seeking a pardon as well.

Jurors found Cothren used a phony name, “Matthew Phoenix,” to fill out a federal tax form required by the state. They also heard an audiotape of FBI agents questioning Casada and notifying him it is against federal law to lie to them.

Casada resigned the speaker’s seat in August 2019 amid a sexist and racist texting scandal involving Cothren, in addition to complaints about his management style after the House Republican Caucus cast a no-confidence vote. 

The Registry board initially audited the Faith Family Freedom Fund PAC because of a complaint filed by Greg Hazelwood, the treasurer for Tillis, who claimed the political action committee illegally coordinated with Warner’s campaign. Auditors were stonewalled but finally found Friedopfer, who registered the PAC, in Utah.