KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Mourners on Monday paid their respects to former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. at the University of Tennessee center in that bears his name.
The Knoxville News Sentinel (https://bit.ly/1vocKgMhttps://bit.ly/1vocKgM ) reports that people began lining up outside the Baker Center for Public Policy in Knoxville well before the doors opened to view the flag-draped casket of the onetime Senate majority leader.
Baker cut to the core of the 1973 Watergate hearings when he asked, “What did the president know and when did he know it?” He died Thursday at age 88.
Baker in his 18 years in the Senate won widespread respect from Republicans and Democrats. He once ran for president and later was President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff.
Among the attendees was former Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist. He said he and U.S. Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky., and John Duncan Jr., R-Tennessee, recently drove to visit his former colleague and friend in his hometown of Huntsville near the Kentucky state line.
“We didn’t know how long we’d be able to stay, but we started telling war stories, and we stayed over an hour,” Sundquist said.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Prosecutors representing a woman who was allegedly raped by four former Vanderbilt University football players asked a judge Monday to charge defense attorneys with criminal contempt of court for releasing personal information about the victim.
Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman said during a court hearing that the defense attorneys violated the state’s rape shield law when they filed a motion of more than 100 pages that contained what should have been private information about the rape victim, such as her name, photos, medical records and Twitter account.
“There’s absolutely no rational explanation that would be done, other than to intimidate the victim,” Norman said.
Defense attorneys say they did nothing wrong, and that some of the information was public record.
The hearing Monday was for former football player Brandon Vandenburg, one of the players accused of gang raping a student in a campus dorm last June. Vandenburg, 20, is charged with five counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery, unlawful photography and tampering with evidence. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Vandenburg’s defense attorney, Fletcher Long, told reporters after the hearing that the defense is simply developing the evidentiary record needed to “exonerate … a man who’s wrongly accused.”
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Lamar Alexander showed little interest Monday in taking up challenger Joe Carr’s call for a debate in advance of the Republican Senate primary in August.
Alexander told reporters in a joint appearance with fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky that with seven candidates running for the GOP nomination, it would be difficult to schedule them all to appear at once.
“The first question would be, could we schedule it?” Alexander said. “And the second would be if anyone would learn anything from a debate among seven people like that.”
Early voting for the Aug. 7 primary begins July 18.
“The best thing for those of us who are seeking the Republican nomination is just to be available to the people of Tennessee and let them know our views,” Alexander said.
Earlier Monday, Carr noted that in Paul’s successful 2010 campaign against the GOP establishment candidate, the challenger spoken out for the importance of debates.
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HENDERSON, Tenn. (AP) - Officials say a Tennessee man charged in the disappearance of nursing student Holly Bobo is now charged with assault in an altercation with three jail officers.
A report from the Chester County Sheriff’s Office says Zachary Adams was being moved to a specialized jail cell June 13 after he made suicidal comments, “specifically to throw himself from the highest point to which he could climb in his cell.”
The report says Adams hit two corrections officers and tried to trip another jailer as they tried to restrain him. Adams was carried to the cell, where he was to be monitored to prevent him from injuring himself.
Adams is charged with murder and kidnapping in the April 2011 disappearance of the 20-year-old Bobo.
Adams’ attorney did not immediately comment.
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