FBI questions lawmakers about Ford
Rep. Chris Newton told the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Friday that two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents came unannounced to his Cleveland office on May 13 and questioned him about Sen. John Ford, D-Memphis.
“They’re apparently looking at everything under the sun,” said Newton, a Republican from Cleveland.
FBI agents also questioned Rep. Kathryn Bowers last week about bills she’s worked on with Ford.
“As Shelby County legislators, we have sponsored a number of bills together, and I guess they are looking at all of the bills that John Ford sponsored,” Bowers, D-Memphis, said Friday.
The Senate Ethics Committee, TennCare, other state agencies and a Memphis grand jury all are investigating Ford’s connections with companies that have contracts with TennCare, the state’s health insurance program for 1.3 million residents.
Newton said he thinks federal agents are “trying to see if there’s anything else out there.”
“I was very open and candid and blunt with them about what I knew and what I did not know,” Newton said. “I’m an open book.”
Agents did not indicate whether they had talked with Ford, he said.
Ford did not return phone calls to his office.
The longtime state senator is being investigated for his connections with Doral Dental, a TennCare contractor. Ford received as much as $429,000 in payments from a consulting partnership with the company.
Newton estimated that 75 percent of the agents’ questions during the hour-and-a-half interview were “directed toward those contracts (with Doral Dental), and what I knew about John Ford and Doral Dental and their parent company and those kinds of things.”
They also asked Newton about legislation he had sponsored or co-sponsored with Ford, including a bill that would allow companies to buy and sell used electronic equipment from the state.
Newton said he let the bill stall in the House Calendar and Rules Committee.
“I stopped that bill after seeing some of the allegations (about Ford) and some of the news reports that had taken place,” he said.
Reps. Ulysses Jones and Larry Miller, both Memphis Democrats and co-sponsors in the House of the surplus-equipment bill, declined to comment on any contacts they may have had with the FBI.