NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Was there pressure inside Marsha Blackburn's U.S. Senate office to break the law?
That's the provocative question raised by new recordings just obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates as Tennessee's senior senator asks voters to put her in the governor's office.
It follows NewsChannel 5’s revelation last week that Blackburn’s office had been the focus of a 2025 investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee into allegations that taxpayer resources had been used for her political campaigns.
Watch full report on NewsChannel 5 at 6PM
Over the weekend, in an interview with WKRN’s Bob Mueller, the Brentwood Republican argued that there was really nothing to the complaint.
"This was a politically motivated complaint,” Blackburn told Mueller. “It was fully investigated. There was no misconduct. There was no disciplinary action. And it has been completely resolved."
Asked if she would release documents related to the ethics investigation, Blackburn dodged the question, implying there was nothing to be released.
Now, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has obtained transcripts of recordings from inside Blackburn's own office that were provided to the Senate Ethics Committee. We later obtained the recordings themselves and listened to them to verify the transcripts.
In one, a senior Blackburn staffer says, "Look, I could have ran out of ink writing down the violations," a reference to violations of Senate ethics rules. The person later added, "The staff being told to do things is a gross violation of the Hatch Act."
The Hatch Act makes it a crime to use federal staff and federal tax dollars for anyone's political campaigns."
Concerns about being asked to cross ethical, legal lines
At the time of the recordings, Marsha Blackburn was gearing up for her 2024 re-election campaign, and members of her taxpayer-funded Senate staff were afraid of being forced to cross ethical and legal lines to engage in political activity.
"When it gets to the point where I'm just, like, ethically, the moment it feels like I'm crossing ethical lines...,” a junior staff member worried.
A senior member of the Senate staff interjected, "I don't like it."
The first person agreed, "I don't like it either."
That's when the senior Blackburn Senate staff member warned, "It's gonna be like those lines don't even exist in '24, which is a problem."
NewsChannel 5 is not airing or posting the recordings, nor identifying the people involved, because of fears of retribution, including potential loss of their jobs.
Last week, a leading government ethics expert confirmed that those staff members were right to be concerned.
"The ethical concern with having official staff working on the campaign is that you're using taxpayer money for campaign activity,” said Kedric Payne, general counsel and vice president for the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center.
“And that's a basic ethics rule that all staffers are aware of, as well as all members."
Related:
John Rose calls for Marsha Blackburn to release findings of ethics probe
'It's gonna be hell'
In fact, Blackburn's taxpayer-funded staff were so worried about the 2024 campaign, according to the evidence provided to the Senate Ethics Committee, they were not sure they could continue to work for her office.
"Look, can I tell you something that is completely off the record and, you know, just don't say anything about it?" the senior Blackburn staffer said to the underling.
"Yeah."
"Look, if I were you, I'd start looking 'cause it's gonna be hell, and you're gonna be asked to break the law – on some level. You're not going to be asked to, like, commit fraud or something, but as far as, like basically being a campaign worker and, you know, blowing off your real job.”
The person added, “'Cause you know it's coming."
In the recordings, much of the blame is directed at Blackburn's longtime political strategist Ward Baker, who has a reputation around Washington and Tennessee's Capitol Hill for the aggressive, some would even say belligerent, manner in which he operates.
The junior Blackburn staffer described working with Baker, "You're operating in different worlds. You're operating with different sets of facts, and he just doesn't really operate ... in this world of truthfulness or honesty."
"No, no," the senior person added. "He's a psychopath, and he doesn't care – and he's not going to. That's what it really comes down to. There is no empathy, compassion, dignity, integrity. And there's not going to be."
The conversation then turned to why Baker would not hire campaign staff – and leave the Senate staffers to do their work for taxpayers.
"He's literally making millions of dollars for her campaign effort. Why would they not...," the junior person noted, with the higher-up interjecting: “I think he enjoys hurting people."
"Why don't you hire campaign workers and hurt those people?"
"'Cause he keeps more money."
Blackburn refuses to release Ethics Committee correspondence
Blackburn's campaign manager, who works for Ward Baker, refused to respond to NewsChannel 5’s specific questions about the ethics committee investigation.
"Given the history of your not being fair in your coverage of Senator Blackburn and publicity in regard to immediate coverage of her by your station, we are not going to respond to your inquiry,” Abigail Sigler said via text.
“Further, please understand that much of what you say in your comments is inaccurate and totally without any basis in fact."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates responded, “If there is something in our reporting that is inaccurate, we would be happy to correct it.”
Sigler never replied.
Blackburn’s office has refused to release its correspondence with the Senate Ethics Committee to back up its positions. One of Blackburn’s competitors in the race for governor, John Rose, has called upon her to produce all related evidence.
On WKRN, Bob Mueller asked her, “Is there a finding that will be released?"
"There is, the ethics committee sends out a report every year and shows that there was no disciplinary action,” Blackburn responded.
In fact, the Senate Ethics Committee almost never takes public disciplinary action against one of its fellow members.
And what the senator did not reveal was that instead of disciplinary action, according to a person briefed on the outcome of the ethics investigation, the committee planned to ask Blackburn to produce a corrective action plan to fix the problems inside her office.
'Unwritten rule' for Ward Baker?
In the words of one person involved in the investigation, Blackburn's office was like children "running around with scissors" – where senior staff knew there was a problem, but no one did anything to put a wall between the Senate staff and Ward Baker.
On the recordings, the senior staffer observed, "I think that there is an unwritten rule that he gets to break all the rules.... I suspect you don't disagree...."
The other person answered, "I think my response is, like ... each member of the team has to look out for himself or herself."
The senior Blackburn staffer agreed, "Like you said, look out for number one. 'Ain't none of us need to be getting in trouble for a, you know, a bald-headed psychopath. Like, I'm not doing it."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates has obtained other evidence to back up the concerns raised by the Senate Ethics Committee.
Still, the source has asked that we keep to ourselves – at least for now – with hopes that it will not be necessary to release any additional information at this stage of the campaign.