Andy Ogles

William Andrew Ogles IV (/ˈoʊɡəlz/ OH-gəlz; born June 18, 1971) is an American politician and business owner serving as the U.S. representative for Tennessee's 5th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the mayor of Maury County, Tennessee, from 2018 to 2022.

Ogles has taken strongly conservative positions and been described by media as being on the far-right of the political spectrum. He has called for Christian nationalism in the United States, and he opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. He was one of the original 19 members of Congress to vote against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House. He is known for his staunch support for Donald Trump, and for sending Christmas cards featuring a photo of his family holding rifles.

During the attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, Ogles falsely claimed that it was stolen. He has proposed a constitutional amendment to enable Trump to serve a third presidential term and filed articles of impeachment against judges who rule against the Trump administration.

Ogles has been criticized for lying about his education and career backgrounds, having falsely claimed to be both an economist and law-enforcement officer, and has been designated an anti-Muslim extremist by CAIR.

Ogles was born on June 18, 1971. A native of Middle Tennessee, he graduated from Franklin High School and later attended Western Kentucky University and Columbia State Community College from 1990 to 1993.

Ogles later studied at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), where he failed every course taken in the fall of 1995 and the fall of 1998; he returned to the university in 2007 and graduated with a 2.4 grade point average, with a Bachelor of Science in liberal studies. Ogles said in late February 2023 that his failed university courses were due to "an interfamilial matter" that led him to abandon his studies "to financially support my family during a difficult time" and that he eventually completed his studies with online courses.

After Ogles became a congressman in 2023, his congressional biography claimed that he received his degree from MTSU, "where he studied policy and economics." Ogles' claim was questioned by NewsChannel 5 in February 2023, which published an investigatory report detailing that in a 2009 resume and also in a background check of unspecified date, Ogles claimed to have an MTSU degree in international relations, with minors in psychology and English. NewsChannel 5 additionally reported that MTSU declined to confirm Ogles' degree, referencing a federal law allowing students like Ogles the ability to block the release of academic records. Ogles later spoke to WWTN radio, calling for everyone to "lock down your transcripts ... so you're not a victim of identity theft." In other comments to WWTN made on February 21, 2023, Ogles said that he does not remember "saying I had an economics degree … because I've been quite clear that I studied political science and international relations", while maintaining that he studied political science from "the economic perspective".

On February 26, Ogles said that he was "mistaken" in claiming to have an MTSU degree in international relations, and claimed that he requested his college transcript the week before, and only learned then that his degree was actually in liberal studies. NewsChannel 5 called Ogles's statement "apparently preemptive" because Ogles "ignored our requests for comment" after the media outlet obtained his MTSU transcript from an old job application. On February 27, NewsChannel 5 published Ogles's transcript, which showed that Ogles took only one economics course at a community college, scoring a C pass, while he passed nine (and failed several other) political science courses at MTSU. By February 28, Ogles's congressional biography was edited to simply state: "Andy obtained his degree from MTSU." NewsChannel 5 also investigated Ogles' claims of having done graduate work in marketing at Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management and Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, and learned that Ogles took online non-credit courses in certificate programs rather than graduate courses.