BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
The Tennesseanreports today on some facts that first surfaced on Terry Frank's blog regarding one of the people targeted by Democrat-connected state trooper Ronnie Shirley's extensive unauthorized criminal background checks - a Republican state trooper named Robert Eckerman.
The facts of the story suggest that, at a minimum, the Tennessee Highway Patrol has a huge conflict-of-interest in investigating Shirley's actions - and raise the possibility that the investigation and the Bredesen administration's determination to let THP handle it is really just a cover-up.
Among the facts in the story:
1. The Bredesen administration routinely promoted troopers based on their contributions to Bredesen's campaign. This is not an allegation, it has been documented.
2. Eckerman is suing the THP leadership, including its uniformed leader Col. Mike Walker, and the head of its criminal investigations division, alleging retaliation and a hostile work environment because of his Republican political affiliation. Eckerman is one of several THP officers pursuing similar lawsuits.
3. Eckerman discovered that Lt. Shirley - a trooper who has deep ties to the Bredesen administration and the state's Democrat machine - had run an unauthorized criminal background check on Eckerman and his wife.
4. Eckerman notified THP.
5. The same people he is suing are now overseeing the probe into Shirley's activities - people who have a vested interest in downplaying Shirley's actions and depicting them as the wrong but harmless activities of a nosy trooper with too much time on his hands.
6. The last time Lt. Shirley was caught doing favors for the Bredesen administration, he was given a fake punishment, something the Bredesen administration has known about - and done nothing about - for two years.
Gov. Bredesen should immediately call in the feds to investigate, before people start to think that he, too, is part of some sort of cover-up.
Update: The Bredesen's Watergate blog lists several very important yet unanswered questions about the Snooper Trooper.
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The Tennessean