President Trump on Thursday pardoned former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada and his former chief of staff Cade Cothren, who were convicted on federal corruption charges.
Casada, a Republican, was sentenced in September to three years in prison over a 2020 scheme to receive over $50,000 in taxpayer money from a mailer program for lawmakers. Prosecutors said Cothren, with support from Casada, listed a fake name on tax documents for a political consulting firm that received the funds. Cothren was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
“The defendants abused their power as government officials and defrauded taxpayers for their own enrichment,” Matthew Galeotti, head of the Justice Department Criminal Division, said after the September sentencing. “The Criminal Division is committed to holding accountable those who betray public trust.”
But the White House said Friday that the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden had “significantly over-prosecuted these individuals for a minor issue involving constituent mailers — which were billed at competitive prices, never received a complaint from legislators, and resulted in a net profit loss of less than $5,000.”
Casada’s attorney Ed Yarbough said he was still waiting for the pardon paperwork, but Mr. Trump had called Casada on Thursday to give him the news that he would be granted a full pardon. The call came days before Casada was supposed to report to prison to serve his sentence.
Casada resigned as speaker in 2019 amid multiple scandals that were not related to the corruption charges, including reports he had exchanged sexually explicit texts about women with Cothren.
Cothren resigned shortly before Casada, after sexual, racist and drug-fueled texts he had sent were published by News Channel 5 in Nashville and other outlets. He also admitted that he had used cocaine in a state legislative office building while in a previous job.
During his second term, Mr. Trump has pardoned several Republican lawmakers who were convicted of fraud or corruption. In mid-October, he commuted the sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, who was serving over seven years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. In May 2025, Mr. Trump pardoned former New York Rep. Michael Grimm, who served eight months in prison in 2015 for tax evasion.