Rep. Andy Ogles, the third first-term House Republican discovered to have lied about his background and qualifications, is following in the footsteps of Rep. George Santos in his strategy for responding to the revelations: He’s admitting something, but far from everything.
Ogles has admitted that his degree from Middle Tennessee State University is not in international relations, as he had claimed. It’s in liberal studies, which The Washington Post describes as “a general education degree typically for those who cannot settle on a major.” Ogles says that he had started majors in international relations and political science, and after he dropped out for family reasons and then returned as a distance learning student, he thought he had completed those majors and only recently learned that his diploma was in liberal studies.
That’s not so bad, right? Except his college major was not the major lie Ogles told.
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Ogles has also described himself as an economist, but Nashville television station WTVF got a copy of his transcript and found that he took a single course in “Principles of Economics,” and got a C in that class.
That’s also not the major lie Ogles told.
He described himself as a “nationally recognized expert on tax policy and health care,” except the national recognition was a handful of op-eds he wrote as an Americans for Prosperity lobbyist.
He claimed he was “a former member of law enforcement, worked in international sex crimes, specifically child trafficking.” Ogles’ time as a member of law enforcement was as a volunteer reserve deputy in the Williamson County sheriff’s office, a volunteer gig he lost due to:
- Not making minimum quarterly hours for 3 of the last 4 quarters.
- No progress in Field Training during 2011.
- Failure to attend the required 75% of Reserve Meetings.
Considering that Ogles repeatedly claimed “I worked in human trafficking” and he definitely did not do so in a law enforcement capacity, has anyone looked into whether he was working the other side of human trafficking? When he isn’t connecting his human trafficking work to his time in law enforcement, he’s claiming—including on his congressional website—that he was chief operating officer for the nonprofit Abolition International, “overseeing operations and investments in 12 countries.” Except Abolition International wasn’t working in 12 countries at all, and Ogles’ “chief operating officer” position was a part-time gig that paid him a grand total of $4,000.
Ogles has a lot more to explain than “Whoops, I never looked closely at my diploma and it turns out I was credited with a different major than I thought.” If he’s hoping to look like an honest guy by copping to that one while staying silent about the ones that really matter, it’s not going to work. The good news for him, though, is that the Republican base doesn’t care about honesty or truthfulness from its representatives.
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