NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A newspaper is reporting that the Tennessee House speaker and his top aide sent each other sexually explicit text messages about women.
The Tennessean on Monday also reported Cade Cothren, chief of staff for Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, sent sexually explicit messages to and made “inappropriate” advances toward former interns, lobbyists and campaign staffers between 2014 and 2016.
The newspaper said the text messages between the two men did not involve the former interns. It did not say if they involved the others.
Cothren told The Associated Press in an email the accusations are “years old.” He also referred the AP back to a statement he had sent earlier Monday in response to other allegations. In that statement, he said he had done things he was “not proud of.”
The Tennessean quoted him as saying that he had sent “derogatory” texts to women in the past. It quoted Casada as saying that his own involvement in the messages amounted to comments on “a relationship between two consenting adults.”
Also Monday, Cothren admitted to using cocaine in the legislative office building years ago when he was press secretary for the Tennessee House Republican caucus. WTVF-TV first reported the drug use.
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