Tim Burchett and his then-wife Allison on the campaign trail in 2010, when he first ran for Knox County Mayor.
It's still early enough in the campaign season that people are mostly playing nice, promoting themselves without yet tearing down their opponents. That is, except for the 2nd Congressional District over in East Tennessee, where attacks on frontrunner Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett keep getting weirder and weirder.
It started back in December, whenThe Tennessean inexplicably ran a poorly sourced story, full of fallacious logic, alleging that Burchett was under FBI investigation, possibly for bribery and tax evasion, and that his ex-wife Allison had been working as a confidential informant for the FBI since their divorce in 2012. Shortly after the Scene's analysis of the piece, an anonymous post popped up on a Knoxville libertarian blog criticizing our reporting. A link to that post was texted, by Allison, to everyone in Tim's address book circa 2012, including this reporter.
Then, earlier this week, a robocall from an apparently spoofed number began hitting Knoxville-area phones, saying, "East Tennessee voter, are you aware that the FBI is currently asking about career politician Knox County mayor Tim Burchett involving potential bribery cases, tax evasion and more? The Department of Justice is reportedly sending out letters as we speak." The other candidates running denied involvement.
On Thursday, the day after the robocall news was reported in local outlets, Allison Burchett sent out a lengthy email to dozens, if not hundreds of people, stating that Tim "orchestrated the false accusations" for which Allison is now serving 4 years probation after accepting a plea deal last summer — and that Knox County DA Charme Allen was also involved in the corrupt scheme. In 2015, Allison was accused of a range of cyber crimes involving Nicole Strickland, the estranged wife of her current boyfriend; she allegedly hacked Strickland's Facebook account and posted pictures of her mastectomy, stole Strickland's identity and used it to shut down some accounts and open others, and made unauthorized purchases from Strickland's bank account. Allison was indicted on 13 charges, some felonies with penalties of up to six years in jail, but she pleaded to just four misdemeanors. (That infuriated Strickland, who thought Allen had gone too easy on her.)
Allison sending out an email to a bunch of people explaining how she was done wrong would not generally be news. If Allison were just a normal, vengeful ex-wife, it'd be one thing, but her boyfriend, Michael Strickland, has donated to state Rep. Jimmy Matlock's congressional campaign. (Matlock is one of three other Republicans in the race with Burchett.) Allison and Strickland and Matlock have been spotted dining together recently, and Allison seems to have lunch with Lynn Duncan, wife of retiring U.S. Rep. Jimmy Duncan, on a weekly basis, according to a number of people in Knoxville who feel the need to let me know every time.
Also, a couple of hours after Allison sent her email, at least two anonymous email accounts sent an abbreviated version to seemingly half the journalists, lobbyists and political consultants in the state. Two separate anonymous Twitter accounts began tweeting links to documents (which were also attached to her email) that Allison says prove her innocence. One of those documents is a memo Allison wrote alleging how Tim framed her; the other two are drafts of a motion to dismiss her criminal proceedings because she was set up.
There's just one problem though — that motion was never filed, according to her attorney, Bill Ramsey. (And even if it had been, it wouldn't be proof of anything, as it's a motion, not a statement of facts.) Stranger still, the motions actually end up making Allison look worse — possibly part of why the motion was never filed. In one transcribed conversation between Nicole Strickland, her friend Michael Barbrow and a police investigator, Strickland recounts Allison trying to run off her off the road twice and says she also tried to do the same to Tim. It's also worth noting that the earlier draft of the motion, written in 2016, says she had been a CI for three years; in December she told The Tennesseean that she is still serving as a CI and has been for five years.
In her email, Allison says the reason she did not go to trial, despite having proof of collusion, is that Allen "threatened that if we filed these motions that she would indict both Michael and our son if I did not take the horrible plea deal put before me." (Allison is not legally the parent of either of the Strickland children; according to Nicole Strickland, the couple's other son has refused to speak to Michael for years, since Allison moved in.)
Allison ends her plea thusly: "When Knox County Mayor & current Congressional Candidate Tim Burchett is indicted, I hope that whoever is in the Governor’s office at the time will see that I signed the plea under duress because of the threats against my family and that they will pardon me and expunge my sentence." This made us curious as to whether Allison was actually trying to get a pardon, and, it turns out, she is. On Dec. 13, two weeks after the original Tennessean story and one day after our post about it, Allison emailed Gov. Bill Haslam. Her email is not word for word the same as the one sent out yesterday, but it's close, and the same three documents were attached. At the end of her missive, she asked Haslam to pardon her and expunge her sentence before he leaves office — and to not support Tim as a congressional candidate.
According to Haslam's spokesperson Jennifer Donnals, the governor did not respond.
Tim Burchett declined to discuss the emails but did issue the following statement.
"I had nothing to do with the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Allison Burchett. She is responsible for her own bad behavior and pleaded guilty to it. Prosecutors and the Court don’t believe her assertions, and neither do I. The bottom line is that I reported a crime committed against me, as anyone should; how investigators and prosecutors used that information was their decision, not mine," Burchett said.
