Homeland Security checking on Ford parking

Access to the garage is restricted, but a driver for Ford parked there during a court hearing for the former senator on May 27. Ford’s use of the garage allowed him to avoided a crowd of news reporters waiting for him.

Jeanne Burden, area commander for Homeland Security, told WREG-TV of Memphis that she is checking to see who allowed Ford’s driver access to the garage.

Ford’s nephew, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., has an office is the building, but the congressman said he knows nothing about his uncle’s parking arrangements.

“No one in my office has a (security) badge,” the congressman said. “We have cards that get us in the garage, and no one in my office had anything to do with this.”

Ford is one of five current or former state lawmakers indicted by a federal grand jury on extortion and bribery charges.