Sen. Jerry Cooper (D-Morrison) dodged a bullet in his federal fraud trial; however, evidence presented in that trial was used to load another gun.
The other gun was "fired" by Drew Johnson, director of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. The bullet included the numerous campaign checks written by Cooper moving $95,000 from his re-election campaign account to his personal bank accounts.
Phil Williams of Channel 5 in Nashville does extensive investigative reporting and did another great job on this.
Early on, the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance knew about the testimony and the campaign finance violations, but the Registry refused to take any action against Cooper unless a private individual filed a formal complaint.
That's where the Director of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research stepped in. If you click on the TCRP link, above, there are several excellent articles about the November 14th fine and events leading up to it.
The evidence was solid---so solid that Cooper didn't even show up at the Registry hearing for the decision.
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