Hold onto your hats, folks—President Donald Trump has just dropped a bombshell by pardoning two Tennessee Republicans caught in a legal storm.
Trump has extended clemency to former Tennessee state House Speaker Glen Casada and his chief of staff, Cade Cothren, both convicted on corruption charges but now freed from their sentences after the White House confirmed the pardons on a recent Friday, as Breitbart reports.
Let’s rewind to the beginning of this saga, where Casada and Cothren found themselves in hot water over allegations of shady dealings.
Prosecutors claimed the duo collaborated with an unnamed lawmaker to channel funds to themselves via a political consulting outfit called Phoenix Solutions, LLC, all to keep their involvement under wraps.
This scheme, according to the accusations, was a clever way to snag taxpayer-funded mail contracts from fellow state legislators.
Despite pleading not guilty, the hammer came down hard—Casada was convicted on 17 counts, while Cothren faced guilty verdicts on all 19 charges in a trial that kicked off in April.
By September, the court handed Casada a three-year prison term and Cothren a slightly lighter two-and-a-half-year sentence for their roles in this public corruption fiasco.
But the drama started even earlier—back in 2019, Casada stepped down from his speaker role after Tennessee Republicans gave him a no-confidence vote, signaling deep cracks in party trust.
Meanwhile, Cothren took to social media platforms to voice his belief that Democrats had unfairly singled him out, all while expressing steadfast support for Trump’s leadership.
Enter Trump, who has made it a mission to stand by those he believes have been unfairly targeted by what he calls Democratic “witch hunts.”
A White House official didn’t hold back, stating, “The Biden Department of Justice significantly over-prosecuted these individuals for a minor issue involving constituent mailers — which were billed at competitive prices, never received a complaint from legislators, and resulted in a net profit loss of less than $5,000.”
Let’s unpack that—over-prosecution for a measly mailer mix-up that didn’t even turn a profit? Sounds like the DOJ might have been swinging a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, especially when far bigger fish in the fraud pond often get lighter slaps on the wrist.
The same official added, “The Biden DOJ responded with an armed raid, perp walk and suggested sentences exceeding 10 years – penalties normally reserved for multimillion dollar fraudsters.”
Armed raids and decade-long sentence threats for a small-scale mailer kerfuffle? If that’s not a textbook case of bureaucratic overreach, then what is, especially when compared to the kid-glove treatment some progressive darlings seem to enjoy in the justice system?
Trump’s track record on clemency isn’t new—he’s previously stepped in for figures like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat convicted under the Obama DOJ for attempting to auction off a Senate seat, and issued sweeping pardons for nearly 1,600 individuals tied to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, alongside commuting sentences for 14 others. This latest move for Casada and Cothren fits a pattern of challenging what Trump sees as politically motivated prosecutions, a stance that resonates with many conservatives tired of seeing their own dragged through the mud while others skate free.
