Latest news with #Ogles'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, others call for probe into Nashville mayor over ICE operation
Flanked by state and local lawmakers, U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles on Memorial Day repeated a call to investigate Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell and said the mayor obstructed a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement operation in early May. Nashville is weeks removed from the weeklong immigration enforcement operation, during which ICE and the Tennessee Highway Patrol made 468 traffic stops and arrested nearly 200 immigrants. The ICE sweeps were concentrated in south Nashville, in neighborhoods around Nolensville Pike and Harding Place with a large population of immigrants and Latino residents. Ogles' call to investigate O'Connell is not new — he called on two congressional committees, the House Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, to open investigations into the mayor and other city officials during a May 14 Department of Homeland Security briefing on Capitol Hill. On Memorial Day inside the Tennessee State Capitol, Ogles decried past presidential administrations for letting a 'flood of illegals' come into the country and described a visit to CECOT, the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has been sending purported members of crime gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13. He also rattled off a list of crimes involving undocumented immigrants in Nashville, several of whom were arrested as part of the recent ICE operation. 'When a mayor stands up and is defending those types of individuals over our hard-working law enforcement — Homeland Security, ICE, THP, the sheriff's department and the city — he's choosing criminals over Tennesseans,' Ogles said. In a social media post following the news conference, Ogles clarified that he's looking for the following documents and communications as part of the investigation: The recent amendment to Executive Order 30 requiring city departments to inform the mayor's office within a certain time frame after communicating with federal immigration authorities, which Ogles called 'an outrageous directive.' Any internal discussions or documents concerning ICE enforcement actions in Nashville or Davidson County. All correspondence involving city employees and affiliated non-governmental organizations regarding the arrest or detention of undocumented immigrants in the city or county. 'If you're helping violent gangs destroy Tennessee by obstructing ICE — you belong behind bars,' Ogles' post concluded. While O'Connell hasn't shied away from criticizing the ICE arrests, he's stated before that he understands the city's hands are tied when it comes to federal immigration operations and has previously told reporters that the amended order wouldn't allow his office to publicize operations like this one. Ogles was joined by several Republican state lawmakers, including Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), Rep. Lee Reeves (R-Franklin), Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood) and Rep. Kip Capley (R-Summertown). While she didn't attend, Sen. Marsha Blackburn also sent a letter in support of the event accusing Democrats of 'demonizing' law enforcement. While many of them spoke, protesters banged on windows and shouted chants that continued throughout the news conference. Metro Nashville Council Member David Benton was the sole local official to speak during the event. Benton represents District 28, which includes part of Antioch where the recent ICE operation was concentrated. In part, Benton said he supports legal immigration but called it 'cruel' for city officials to encourage undocumented immigrants to remain in the country 'as if they can shield them in some sort of false pretense against ICE enforcement.' Benton also made a call for an investigation of his own — he's asking for a state or federal audit of The Belonging Fund, launched by the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee on May 5. According to Community Foundation CEO Hal Cato, the fund is intended to support child care and transportation costs and address housing assistance and food insecurity for immigrant families. O'Connell has previously clarified that the city itself likely couldn't contribute to the fund and also that the fund wouldn't support immigration legal services. Benton, on Memorial Day, said he wanted to 'clarify whether any funds are inadvertently supporting and violating' the federal law against harboring undocumented immigrants. He called for O'Connell to choose between 'criminals or the innocent taxpayers.' 'Stop making a mockery of Memorial Day,' Benton said. 'Defend Nashville, defend Tennessee, defend this country and stop the invasion.' Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@ Get Davidson County news delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rep. Andy Ogles calls for probe into Nashville mayor over ICE operation
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
National Democrats to target US Rep. Andy Ogles as ‘vulnerable Republican' in 2026
U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles is a top target for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee next year, as national Democrats lay groundwork in their attempt to claw back a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ogles' seat in Tennessee's 5th Congressional District landed on a list of 35 competitive districts held by 'vulnerable Republicans' identified by the DCCC. The campaign arm of House Democrats say the districts could the House Majority. Republicans currently hold an extremly narrow majority. Ogles is the only Tennessee Republican on the list. House Republicans released a similar list of 26 target Democratic seats last month. Republicans currently control the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the White House. Whatever party controls the White House typically loses some ground in the midterm elections, and next year, Democrats will seek to capitalize on voter frustrations over President Donald Trump. Ogles is an outspoken supporter and close ally of Trump, having even introduced legislation seeking to give Trump a third term. 'Andy Ogles is running scared, and he should be,' DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene said in a statement. 'From tanking the economy, gutting Medicaid, abandoning our veterans, to making everything more expensive, he has broken his promises to Tennesseans, and it's going to cost him his seat.' The announcement comes days after U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., held a People's Town Hall in Nashville in an effort to highlight Ogles' unavailability to voters. Ogles has not held an in-person town hall since his election in 2022, and was reelected after a campaign with no traditional public campaign events, despite calls to do so. 'The DCCC is already working to recruit authentic and battle-ready candidates in Tennessee who reflect this community and will work to better Tennesseans' lives, not line Elon Musk's and his D.C. party bosses' pockets,' DelBene said. Still, the 5th District will be an uphill fight for the Democrats. The district once included all of the Democratic stronghold of Davidson County but was redrawn after the 2020 Census to favor the GOP. The district now spans from Lebanon in Wilson County, through southern Davidson County, and south across Williamson, Maury, Marshall, and Lewis counties. Ogles was elected in 2022, after winning a competitive nine-way primary with a significant ground game assist from the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Action – his former employer. But since then, his campaign has been plagued with investigations into its finances, complaints to the Federal Election Commission and reporting errors on his finance documents. For instance, he reported loaning his campaign more than $320,000 only to later say it was a pledge. He then updated his documents to eliminate any reference to the loan. And last year, federal prosecutors seized Ogles' cell phone and email account in an investigation believed to be centered on his federal campaign finance dealings. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee withdrew the criminal investigation after Trump took office. Riley Beggin of USA TODAY contributed. Vivian Jones covers state government and politics for The Tennessean. Reach her at vjones@ This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: National Democrats to target Tennessee Republican Andy Ogles in 2026
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump keeps toying with a third term — even though the Constitution forbids it
WASHINGTON — A coterie of Donald Trump loyalists is in the early phase of a campaign to rewrite the Constitution so he can serve another term — an idea Trump has done nothing to discourage. First as a candidate last year and since he took office, Trump has teased, stoked, nurtured, fed and, if nothing else, kept alive the improbable notion that he might run and serve one more time. 'Am I allowed to run again?' Trump said last month at a meeting with House Republicans in South Florida. The Constitution is clear on that point: He's not. Under the 22nd Amendment, no one may be elected president more than twice. That rules out Trump. 'There is no argument whatsoever that President Trump can be elected to the office of president again,' J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal appeals court judge who was appointed to the bench by Republican President George H.W. Bush, said in an interview. Diehard supporters are undeterred, hoping to overcome that not-so-small obstacle. A poster displayed at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., over the weekend was captioned 'Third Term Project' and showed Trump in imperial Julius Caesar garb. 'For Trump 2028 ...And Beyond!' it read. One of the organizers, Shane Trejo of Michigan, 37, said a goal is to persuade conservative Republicans to support the proposed constitutional amendment filed last month by a congressional ally of Trump, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. Ogles' resolution calls for extending presidential term limits from eight years to 12, meaning that if Trump wins again, he could stay in office until January 2033, when he'd be 86 years old. Steve Bannon, an avatar of the MAGA movement and a senior White House adviser in Trump's first term, fired up the conservative activists at CPAC when he said in a speech: 'We want Trump in '28. That's what they can't stand. A man like Trump comes along only once or twice in a country's history. We want Trump!' And what does Trump want? When he met with House Republicans after he won the election in November, he told them: 'I suspect I won't be running again unless you say, 'He's so good we've got to figure something else out.'' That could be read as a joke or as an invitation to act. But it wasn't a hard no. 'We believe that if the public demands it, he will step forward and serve his third term,' Trejo said. 'This could be a real chance to not just change some rules via executive order. Executive orders can be undone very quickly. This could be a substantial way for Trump to change the future of the country for generations to come.' The White House didn't respond to a request for comment on whether Trump wants to see Ogles' resolution pass. Opinions differ about the seriousness of the prospect among GOP lawmakers and former advisers who've worked with Trump before. There's a strong view that he's simply trolling his critics — tormenting them by suggesting he's not going away. This is, after all, America's self-appointed monarch. When his administration scrapped New York City's congestion pricing program, Trump declared on his social media platform: "Long live the king!" in capital letters. Taking the cue, the White House's various social media accounts depicted him on a fake magazine cover wearing a bejeweled crown. 'President Trump joking about a third term is like a chef joking about putting a Michelin star on his own restaurant — obviously not happening, but fun to watch the critics lose their minds over it,' Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager in 2020, told NBC News. Yet others believe that if the Constitution is somehow amended to permit a third term, Trump would take the leap. 'If there's a procedural way to accomplish it, he's likely very much considering it,' said Jenna Ellis, a 2020 Trump campaign attorney who is now a senior policy adviser for the American Family Association. 'That does take a constitutional amendment, but let's not forget that the Constitution was amended to impose term limits, and that can be undone,' Ellis added in an interview. Two paths exist to amend the Constitution, both tortuous. The more common one would require a two-thirds vote of Congress, followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states (38 out of 50). Given the Republicans' slim majority in the House and the Senate and the polarized state of the electorate, clearing that threshold would seem out of the question. 'It would take this body to act, and I don't see this body acting,' Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said in an interview. The other route hasn't been used to ratify any of the 27 constitutional amendments that have been approved since 1791, but it's one that Trump allies are mulling. Consider it a way to bypass a deadlocked Congress. If two-thirds of the states (34 out of 50) agree, they may call a constitutional convention to propose amendments. But even then, three-quarters of the states would need to ratify any changes. 'The reason we have the fewest amendments of any comparable constitution is that it's almost impossible to amend the Constitution, because we can't get 34 to 38 states to agree. It's a very, very steep hurdle,' said Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law. Of the two paths, a constitutional convention might be the only realistic vehicle to potentially extend Trump's presidency. That's because of the states' partisan makeup. Figures tallied by the National Conference of State Legislatures show that 57% of those bodies are controlled by Republicans, only 37% by Democrats. 'This is not outside the scope of possibility,' Ellis said, 'which is why the conversation is so fascinating.' Trump's motives in invoking a third term may be varied. At a minimum, talk of a third term may keep his political capital from dwindling. No president wants to be thought of as a lame duck. If Trump can plant the idea that he might be in the White House into the next decade, he can retain the clout needed for Congress to enact his agenda. 'He rules Congress with fear, so if there's even a remote chance he could stay in power, they will stay in line,' said Michael DuHaime, a former Republican National Committee official. When Fox News asked Trump this month whether Vice President JD Vance would be his heir apparent in 2028, he said no, added that it's "too early" to say and then quickly changed the subject. He didn't linger on the fact that he's serving a finite term with a beginning, a middle and an end. Vance and those close to him rejected any suggestion that there was any sort of rift with the boss. 'I think he said exactly what he should have said, which is: 'It's too early,'' Vance said when he was asked about Trump's answer in an interview this week with the Daily Mail. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ask Jordan: Can Trump serve a third term?
'I heard someone saying that President Trump had a Republican in Congress working on writing up an amendment to change presidential term limits so he can serve longer. Have you heard that? And can he really do that?' — Doris Warner, Mesa, Ariz. Hi Doris, You might be referring to Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican congressman who proposed a constitutional amendment allowing Trump to run for a third term. Ogles' proposal would let Trump take the White House again but, for example, it wouldn't let former Democratic President Barack Obama do so. That's because Ogles crafted the proposal for presidents who didn't serve two consecutive terms, as Obama did. The most notable aspect of Ogles' proposal is the fact that he framed his bid as one to amend the Constitution. This amounts to an admission that Trump can't run again without a constitutional amendment, which is notoriously difficult to accomplish. As it stands now, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution says (in part): 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Trump has been elected twice. That should be the end of the story. And it probably is. While we're on the subject, I'll note that the amendment refers to someone being 'elected' president, which led one observer to hypothesize a scenario in which Vice President JD Vance wins the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, picks Trump as his VP and vows to resign if he wins, making Trump president a third time. I'll also note a recent judicial opinion that touched on the issue. It came in a lawsuit trying to keep Trump from office under the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban (a topic that the Supreme Court resolved in Trump's favor last year, enabling his latest political victory). Part of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' reasoning in agreeing that the case should be dismissed is that it's now moot, with the appellate panel writing this week that the 22nd Amendment 'mandates that President Trump cannot be elected to another term after the current one.' While it's significant that a court said so, even in a case in which Trump's future eligibility wasn't directly at issue, the ruling prompted a concurring opinion from a Trump appointee who replaced now-Justice Neil Gorsuch on the appeals court. Judge Allison Eid agreed with her 10th Circuit colleagues on the bottom line that the case should be dismissed, but she found it unnecessary to discuss the 22nd Amendment to reach that conclusion. 'We should be reluctant to opine on a novel and complex constitutional question when doing so is not essential to resolve the case,' Eid wrote. 'Novel and complex'? Really? It might be a 'novel' issue in the sense that it hasn't been resolved by the courts — because it hasn't had to be resolved. All sorts of wild ideas might be said to be novel in that regard. But is it 'complex'? Again, the Constitution says: 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.' Nonetheless, the Trump appointee suggested an air of complexity to the matter. That doesn't necessarily mean that Eid, who's been floated as a Trump Supreme Court pick, would deem him eligible to run again if the issue were squarely presented. And her opinion didn't lay out arguments explaining how he could be eligible. But it's a reminder that, even regarding the most clear-seeming issues, all bets are off when they reach our courts. Though all things considered, I'd probably take the bet that Trump can't run again without an amendment passing — which, again, is unlikely to happen. Have any questions or comments for me? I'd love to hear from you! Please email deadlinelegal@ for a chance to be featured in a future newsletter. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal prosecutors withdraw from Andy Ogles investigation where FBI seized phone
The federal prosecutors in Middle Tennessee investigating U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles are backing off the case. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee filed motions in federal court on Thursday to withdraw from the criminal investigation of Ogles. The move comes months after the office obtained warrants to seize Ogles' cell phone and email account which were then executed by the FBI. Ogles, R-Columbia, has stated he believes the investigation centered around his federal campaign finance filings. Ogles has not been charged with a crime in relation to the investigation. U.S. Magistrate Judge Alistair Newbern approved the motions to withdraw on Friday, signaling the end of the office's involvement in the case. The U.S. Attorney's Office would not explain to The Tennessean why it chose to withdraw from the case. It's not immediately clear what the move means for the future of the Ogles' investigation, but an attorney still remains on the case for now. Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire stated in the filings that John P. Taddei, an attorney with the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice based out of Washington, is going to take over as lead prosecutor. Court filings state FBI agents executed the search warrant and took Ogles' phone on Aug. 2, 2024, the day after he won the Republican primary for his Congressional seat. Ogles has asked the DOJ to return the cell phone so that he can identify protected legislative materials he says are on them. For more than two years, Ogles has faced scrutiny and multiple complaints over his federal campaign finance disclosures, including a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging a 'pattern of malfeasance' in his financial dealings in 2022, and $5,750 in civil penalties for campaign finance violations after the 2022 cycle. Vivian Jones and Melissa Brown contributed. Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@ This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Andy Ogles investigation: Federal prosecutors withdraw from case
