F.B.I. Seizes Republican Lawmaker’s Phone Amid Scrutiny Over Loan

The F.B.I. has seized the phone of Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, as it carries out an apparent investigation into his campaign finances.

The bureau served a search warrant at Mr. Ogles’s home in central Tennessee on Friday and took his phone, according to his lawyer, G. Kline Preston IV.

“There was a search warrant for a phone,” Mr. Preston said. “That was it. It was a limited search, and we cooperated with the F.B.I.”.

Mr. Preston said it was his understanding that the search was related to allegations of financial improprieties. “Hopefully this will be resolved quickly,” he added.

NewsChannel 5 in Nashville reported on the search warrant earlier on Tuesday. The Justice Department and federal prosecutors in Tennessee declined to comment.

Mr. Ogles has been under scrutiny after reporting a $320,000 loan to his campaign in April 2022. That prompted questions about whether Mr. Ogles, who also reported limited financial resources on his House financial disclosure forms, could have afforded to lend that amount. In May, Mr. Ogles, who called the reported loan a mistake, amended his campaign finance reports to remove it.

The Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group, filed a complaint against Mr. Ogles in January, seeking an ethics investigation into whether the congressman violated financial disclosure requirements.

The complaint alleged that Mr. Ogles’s financial disclosure statements did not include the assets that he purportedly used to personally loan $320,000 to his campaign committee. The complaint also said that he did not report a $700,000 line of credit that he apparently opened in September 2022, according to bank records.

“The over $1 million of financial disclosure discrepancies provide reasonable