Lt. Gov. now says he never talked to Cooper about loan
NASHVILLE — Tennessee’s lieutenant governor has changed his position on whether he talked to a fellow lawmaker about a bank loan now involved in a federal fraud trial.
Lt. Gov. John Wilder said Wednesday that he was incorrect when he said last week that he had talked with Sen. Jerry Cooper about getting a loan at Wilder’s bank.
Wilder has been the subject of heavy criticism since he showed up last week at a hearing held to discuss Cooper and the loan.
Cooper, a Democrat from Smartt, is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal indictment alleging fraud against two men involved in the sale of property owned by Cooper.
Wilder left the meeting of the Senate Ethics Subcommittee, which was not announced to the public, when reporters showed up and pressed to be allowed entry.
But before leaving, Wilder recounted his role in the loan to reporters, saying Cooper approached him about having BankTennessee, which Wilder partly owns, underwrite the $1.77 million loan when the deal was first going down in the late 1990s.
The resulting land deal led to federal indictments charging Anthony and Teresa Auyer of Alabama, who purchased Cooper’s lumber mill property in Warren County, and property appraiser James Passons.
On Wednesday, Wilder changed his story and said he “would like to set the record straight.”
“While it has been over six years ago, it is my conviction that I did not talk to Sen. Jerry Cooper about this matter,” Wilder said. “I was mistaken when I said I talked to Sen. Jerry Cooper. To the extent I indicated otherwise, I was in error.”
The position is a big change from last week when Wilder said he was certain he had talked to Cooper.
At that time, Wilder first told The Associated Press and others that he had not talked to Cooper. But he quickly changed his mind in the next sentence, and went on to say, “Sen. Cooper asked me if my bank would be interested in making the loan. I told him I thought it would and … (Auyer) called my bank.”
Wilder was adamant he did not influence the loan and did not pressure the bank to make the loan.
Wilder was clear that Cooper had talked to him, though, further saying “he asked me if my bank may be interested in making a loan to this person that he sold his plant to. I told Sen. Cooper it might be, and he told this gentlemen that they might be and he talked to them and that’s where it started.”
Wilder reiterated that position two days later, on Friday telling The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal newspaper that he did nothing more than refer Cooper to BankTennessee executives.
“My offhanded remarks simply were not correct,” Wilder now says.
Wilder, 83, has served longer as the presiding officer of a state legislative body than any other person in the nation. He was first elected to the state Senate in 1959 for a two-year term, but then was out of office until winning election again in 1966 to another two-year term. Wilder, a Democrat from Mason, won his first four-year Senate term in 1968 and has been speaker since 1971.
Tennessee Republican Party Chairman Bob Davis, a Wilder critic, said the Senate speaker’s latest comments illustrate the problem.
“I guess everybody can change their mind. What’s different is that this fellow is lieutenant governor, a career politician who out of convenience and habit has made a career out of covering his tracks,” Davis said. “This is exactly why Tennesseans have lost trust in their state government.”
It’s the second time this year that Wilder has backtracked from public comments.
In May, right after the Tennessee Waltz sting that nabbed five current and former lawmakers, Wilder criticized the FBI for “entrapping” the indicted legislators. A week later, he said the remarks were meant to express only his belief that “entrapment is wrong.”