Did The Tennessean Get Burned by Allison Burchett?

There’s an old chestnut in journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. It’s a reminder to do due diligence on stories and the sources for those stories, to report them out, to not just run with something because it’s a great story. That's because all too often, if a story seems too good to be true, it probably is.

So what do we make of the Dec.1 “exclusive” by The Tennessean that Knox County Mayor and 2nd District Congressional candidate Tim Burchett could be under federal investigation, possibly for bribery and/or tax evasion?

Here’s the meat of the story:

Four people tell the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee federal agents have asked them questions about Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett.

It is not clear what the FBI is investigating and whether Burchett, a Republican running for Congress in East Tennessee, is the target of a federal investigation. The people interviewed said FBI agents asked about issues ranging from possible tax evasion to potential bribery and a county contract. …

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee obtained a copy of a document drafted by an attorney that states Burchett’s ex-wife, Allison, was a confidential informant for the FBI, with the code name “Carbon,” since 2012.

Allison Burchett said she began working with the FBI in 2012 but declined further comment.

“I’m sorry I cannot comment on an ongoing FBI investigation,” she said.

The three other sources requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Federal investigators conducted several interviews this year, including as recently as October, sources said. The interviews were conducted in various locations, including the FBI’s Knoxville headquarters.

One source said an IRS agent also has been involved in the inquiry.

The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee obtained copies of a 2017 email exchange between an FBI agent and the attorney of one of the sources questioned this year. The attorney provided the agent documents and other records, according to the email.

The sources would not elaborate on what other issues the agents asked about for fear of jeopardizing the investigation. …

One source, who is a Knoxville-based businessman, said he was questioned about a county contract.

Another source, also a businessman, said agents asked questions about Tim Burchett in addition to questions about a county contract.

Three sources said they anticipate the agents moving forward with their probe after the conclusion of the federal government’s case against Pilot Flying J. Some agents involved in the Pilot case questioned some of the people about Tim Burchett. …

“I’m not sure what they’re charging, but it’s coming pretty soon,” one source said. “This is very, very serious. It’ll blow Knoxville wide open.”

There’s more in the story, of course — a brief backstory of the Burchetts’ bitter divorce, along with Tim Burchett’s denial of any wrongdoing or knowledge of an investigation. But the truly problematic parts of the story are above.

Let’s start with the byline: Joel Ebert and Dave Boucher. Why would sources with knowledge of a federal investigation into the Knox County mayor go to Nashville political reporters with the story instead of the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Jamie Satterfield, a longtime criminal justice reporter who has better federal sources than probably anyone else in the state? Or the KNS’s local government reporter, Tyler Whetstone? (New to town, but more than adept at chasing down leads.) Both The Tennessean and the KNS are owned by Gannett, so it’s not like the story wouldn’t have gotten statewide play either way.

On to Allison Burchett: First, any reporter who covered Tim Burchett during the years he was married to Allison and then followed the couple's contentious divorce could tell you that Allison is not exactly a reliable source. A whole lot of people who aren’t reporters in Knoxville could have told the Nashville duo this. They could have told them Allison has a reputation for making things up.

But setting aside Allison’s penchant for manipulating the facts, setting aside her conviction earlier this year for cyber-stalking her boyfriend (and Bandit Lites owner) Michael Strickland’s estranged wife, setting aside the fact that she was also investigated this summer for hacking into the former president of Bandit Lites’ cell phone and PayPal accounts, let’s look at what she actually shared with the reporters. Allison (or someone close to Allison) showed them a document that says she’s been a CI for the FBI since 2012, code name “Carbon,” and then she verbally confirmed that.

Why would a confidential informant who’s been working with federal agents for five years actually confirm to reporters that she’s a confidential informant?

There’s nothing confidential about that.

But that’s not the only problem with Allison’s allegations. According to a couple of lawyers I’ve talked to, most FBI agents don’t use codenames, at least outside of the office. It’s highly unlikely that a CI would actually know what their codename is, if they were even assigned one. It also seems unlikely that the FBI would use an ex-wife who is no longer on speaking terms with her ex-husband as a CI for five years — Allison and Tim split up in the fall of 2011, and the divorce was finalized in 2012. What conversations could she secretly record during that time period, when for years Tim actively avoided events where she would be?

It’s also worth noting that this document alleging Allison is a CI was produced by her lawyers in an attempt to gain sentencing leniency earlier this year. Had Ebert or Boucher asked Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen’s office about this, they would have found out the office couldn’t confirm the legitimacy of the CI claims. (We’re assuming they didn’t ask, because the KNS’s Whetstone did make that call the next day and tweeted about it.) But those details still haven’t been added to the piece more than a week later.

What’s more, sources with knowledge of the DA’s case told the Scene that the reason they couldn’t confirm the legitimacy of Allison’s CI status — and the reason that document was never actually filed with the court — is because she is not a CI.

Think about it: Federal investigations often take a long time. But if Tim Burchett has been evading taxes since his marriage to Allison in 2008, and she shared proof of that with the feds in 2012, would they really wait five more years to build a case (especially given that he ran for re-election in 2014)? Also, wouldn’t Tim have been sent a target letter at some point? (Which, to date, he has not, per his staff.)

According to one source, Allison might have tried to share some files with the IRS or the FBI in 2012 that she alleged proved misconduct. However, in 2013, Allison tried to get me to write the same story — bribery, tax evasion, shady contracts — when I was working on a profile of her husband for Metro Pulse, Knoxville’s then-alt-weekly. If she were cooperating with the feds, I doubt she would have sent the email she did on May 7, 2013.

Here it is, in its entirety:

Bank statements. You are the only person I have given this information. I showed this information to KNS last year, so they had knowledge of it, but never physically gave it to them. Tim refused to give anyone access to it whereas I said, I have nothing to hide, and agreed to opening the bank statements for a forensic accounting review if he would (pre-divorce & pre-election finance review)--Tim refused.

Why? He has thousands of reasons. Literally. Look for yourself. Every month, the man has thousands more outgoing than incoming (when compared to his paycheck.) Large unexplained cash deposits are made monthly. Sometimes accounting for as much as 75% of the total budget that month. Mortgages, Utilities, basic re-occurring [sic] bills could not have been met without this additional money. (including the campaign amounts.) See for yourself. Judge for yourself. I have emails, texts, you name it showing where he knew exactly what our bills were. But I know you are on a deadline.

I am just sick of being thrown under the bus for something that is so glaringly obvious. I am ready to get on with my life and every time some article even mentions my name associate [sic] with his bullshit story that's one more mark against me, one more job interview that I'm not going to get, one more step further away from moving on. When the reality is, it was HIM, not ME. I was the victim here, not the big bad wolf that he tried to make me out to be. He manipulated me from day 1, and when his plan went south, I was the scapegoat. Plain and simple.

Allison had sent me the first page of two years of joint bank statements, highlighting deposits that were not direct payroll deposits. She alleged that Tim was using his campaign account to cover personal expenses, and that other funds, not campaign funds, were also coming in from somewhere. But without the full bank statements, without any other documentation like tax returns showing that taxes were not paid on the income (if the deposits were indeed income), without the text messages and emails Allison said she had, it was impossible to prove anything. And if Allison did have these text messages and emails, why didn’t she turn them over to the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance when it was investigating Tim’s misspent campaign funds in 2012? (She refused to cooperate with the investigation, according to reports at the time.)

(Tim alleged the $20,000 of campaign funds that ended up in their joint checking account was Allison’s doing — that she spent $11,147 on expensive shoes, clothes and spa visits and $9,350 on mortgage payments for the condo she owned before the marriage. Her signature was on the checks, but she said Tim directed her to transfer the funds. TREF eventually accepted Tim’s version of events and did not fine him after he submitted amended disclosures. Allison, meanwhile, was fired from her banking job during the investigation.)

In any case, Allison never shared anything else with me after my profile of Tim ran later that week. Not liking her brief appearance in the story, she called me and said if I ever wrote about her again, she would sue me. And that was the last time I talked to her (until she texted after I tweeted about Ebert and Boucher’s story).

It would appear that Allison has not “gotten on with [her] life” since 2013 and is still out for revenge against her ex — whom she repeatedly cheated on before getting involved with Strickland, who had not (and still has not yet) divorced his wife. (I have another email in which she admits to that, but I'll spare you.)

I’ve talked to a lot of people in Knoxville over the past week-and-a-half — I was a reporter there for four years — and the consensus seems unified as to who two of the three remaining unnamed sources probably are. One of the businessmen quoted may likely be Strickland. And the third person quoted appears to be Lynn Duncan — the wife of U.S. Rep. Jimmy Duncan and someone who reportedly loathes Tim Burchett. (All the Duncans hate Burchett, partially because they apparently feel that the 2nd District Congressional seat has been in the family so long, they should get to handpick Jimmy’s successor. )

If the third person quoted is not Lynn, it’s someone very close to her, because multiple sources report Lynn has been telling people for months that Tim is under investigation, and they specifically recall her repeatedly using the phrase, “It’ll blow Knoxville wide open,” or something very similar. (Lynn also told people at the TNGOP Statesmen’s Dinner in August that Tim had physically threatened her at a recent campaign event; Burchett’s staff denies this occurred.)

The other businessman quoted is possibly Brad Mayes, who has an animosity toward Knox County government dating a few years before Burchett’s election in 2010 over mulch operations. (It’s a long and complicated story, and one I can’t accurately recount because Gannett wiped most of the KNS archives from the web.) But suffice it to say, Mayes is not a fan of Burchett.

Sources say that on Dec. 1, hours after the story published online, Allison Burchett, Lynn Duncan and Strickland all had lunch together at Wright’s Cafeteria — Tim’s second-most-likely place to be found at lunch, after Vol Market #3. Draw your own conclusions.

Even if Tim is under investigation, and even if federal agents have talked to Strickland, Mayes and members of the Duncan family — or others in that circle — during their investigation, it’s completely irresponsible for The Tennessean to not note that the anonymous sources alleging damning things about Tim are people who have longstanding feuds with him. These are people actively working to make sure Tim Burchett is not the next congressman in the 2nd District, and any story should note to readers the conflicts involved with the sourcing.

The Scene did ask Ebert and Boucher to confirm if Strickland, Mayes and Lynn Duncan were the quoted sources; they did not respond.

There’s one more aspect of the story that’s ridiculous, and that’s how the FBI supposedly has put Burchett’s investigation on hold until the Pilot fraud trial, currently underway in Chattanooga, is over. Again, think about that for a minute: It’s the FBI; they can conduct concurrent investigations. And in any case, the Pilot investigation is long over. The trial is ongoing, but the investigation is not. Maybe a couple of agents have to pop down to Chattanooga to testify, but that’s not a reason why an investigation of Burchett couldn’t be ramped up.

It is, of course, possible there is a federal investigation into Burchett or Knox County procurement procedures or some other people in Knoxville who have connections to Burchett. I have four solid sources (some closer to Tim than others) telling me there is no FBI investigation of Burchett himself, and one person says IRS agents laughed at the notion they were investigating Tim. But that doesn’t mean there’s not something else — although what Burchett is spending those alleged bribes on, I’d really like to know. (Burchett is notoriously frugal, to the point of annoying some of his friends.)

And maybe Ebert and Boucher’s records requests for the past year of county solicitations and any emails to the FBI and target letters (which, so far, don’t exist) will turn up some dirt. It’s also possible, as some anonymous troll Twitter accounts have taken to proclaiming over the past week, that Burchett has a sexual harassment problem. I haven’t seen anything credible yet in that regard.

But it’s also possible that The Tennessean bought into a smear campaign orchestrated by Allison and the Duncans (or maybe even wild-card candidate Jason Emert, too). Strickland has donated to state Rep. Jimmy Matlock’s campaign to replace Rep. Duncan. The fake Twitter accounts — a couple of which seem to have been suspended or deleted over the past week — which I suspect are run at least in part by Kenny Collins, a Knoxville Republican and professional troll who calls himself a “political operative” (but one no one in the state Party seems to take seriously). One of the accounts, @knoxcoemployee, launched the day before the story ran, alleging in multiple tweets that Tim is under investigation. Again, if he really is under investigation and these folks have proof of that, why would they take to anonymous Twitter accounts to proclaim that? That’s not how the feds like to work.

To be clear, these fake accounts (and Collins) have been repeatedly targeting me on Twitter too. The tweets mostly accuse me of being in collusion with Burchett — whose current phone number I don’t even have, and to whom I have not spoken, other than a couple of random tweets, since late 2014, I think. (I am friendly with [but not close to] a couple of Burchett’s staff members, as I am friendly with staff members of almost every politician I have ever covered. It’s part of the job.)

If Tim Burchett is corrupt, if he’s been taking bribes for a decade or longer, if he’s evading taxes, if he’s a serial sexual harasser — if I had proof or even actual knowledge of any of this, I’d be writing about it. But for years there have been only vague and unsubstantiated rumors, and all of those rumors have come from people who hate Tim. Not even rumors you can chase down — just spurious gossip and dead ends. What’s more, this story has been shopped around for years by Allison and her pals — to the KNS, to WBIR, to WATE, to me at Metro Pulse, to some bloggers who don’t know how to do investigative journalism, to the KNS again, probably to all the TV stations again, and now to The Tennessean.

There’s a reason no one took the bait for five years. Tim Burchett is not the new Jeremy Durham, and if Ebert and Boucher and their bosses had taken their blinders off in their rush to get a “scoop,” they might have realized this.

I can’t imagine The Tennessean will actually retract this story, although they should. But since the FBI has a policy of not publicly confirming or denying investigations, there’s no definitive proof that the story is 100 percent wrong. Which is exactly what Burchett’s enemies wanted — something that can be used in campaign ads and mailers.