Warner denies federal PPP loan money used to fund campaign
Freshman Rep. Todd Warner, one of three Republican lawmakers who had their homes and offices raided by the FBI in January, tells The Tennessean‘s Natalie Allison he didn’t use federal COVID-19 relief funds to pay for his campaign.
Warner, a Chapel Hill businessman, received $149,630 under the Paycheck Protection Program in April. He later loaned his campaign $154,100 in the process of defeating incumbent Rep. Rick Tillis (R-Lewisburg) in the August primary.
Warner told the paper he used the PPP money to cover allowable business expenses, while he separately borrowed the money he loaned his campaign from a bank.
“They question your integrity, whether you’re an honest man when you’ve been blown up and they say you’re bankrupt, which I have been in 2010,” Warner told the paper, adding he had since rebounded financially.
Warner’s company filed for federal bankruptcy protection when he couldn’t pay more than $20 million in debts during the Great Recession.
“It was a sad time,” Warner said. “I hope we aren’t headed there again with the government giving all this money away.”
The FBI also hauled away materials from the homes and offices of former House Speaker Glen Casada (R-Franklin) and Rep. Robin Smith (R-Hixson).
Here’s how much federal relief money is flowing to Tennessee counties
The Senate meets in Nashville on June 1, 2020. (Erik Schelzig, Tennessee Journal)
A total of $13 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money is flowing to Tennessee, and a new interactive state website allows users to break down how much is headed specific counties.
In a meeting of the Financial Stimulus Accountability Group on Monday, Senate Speaker Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) asked whether the amounts can be broken out on a per-capita basis to ensure smaller counties weren’t getting less than the likes of Metro Nashville and Shelby County. Gov. Bill Lee’s administration didn’t have those figures at their fingertips, so the Tennessee Journal has crunched the numbers. Here are the top 10 per-capita recipients of federal aid (Anderson County, where McNally lives, comes in at No. 12):
- Jackson, $7,126
- Cheatham, $4,363
- Davidson, $3,931
- Carroll, $3,380
- Smith, 3,738
- Fayette, $3,525
- Cannon, $3,056
- Carter, $2,643
- Giles, $2,643
- Bledsoe, $2,557
The full per-capita breakdown follows:
