Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada (R) is attempting to weather the storm of scandal currently engulfing his administration.
On Wednesday, his communications director Doug Kufner sent out an “action plan” of steps Casada is going to take to rehabilitate his political viability after his chief of staff resigned under a mounting heap of texts revealing his drug use, casual racism and sexual harassment. Casada was involved in some of the exchanges.
“I take complete ownership over the text messages with inappropriate comments about women that I exchanged with my former Chief of Staff and another individual several years ago,” he said in the statement. “It’s embarrassing and humbling to have it displayed in this manner. I apologize and hope that my friends, family, colleagues, and constituents find a way to forgive me for it because it is not the person I am and it hasn’t been the way I have conducted myself as Speaker.”
On Tuesday, he called it “locker room talk.”
The action plan includes supporting the investigation into emails an activist accuses the ex-chief of staff Cade Cothren of doctoring, possibly instituting drug testing in the wake of Cothren’s prodigious cocaine use and meeting with the Black Caucus to apologize for the racist texts.
Earlier on Wednesday, news broke that a recorded phone call caught Casada yelling at his associate who leaked the texts — despite the fact that he floated a theory that the texts were fabricated by his liberal enemies just a day later.
Read TPM’s deep dive on this scandal here.
Casada’s full action plan:
