On Wednesday night, leftist Nashville Mayor Megan Barry stood before local press and repented of
an extramarital affair with her chief of security that began just months after she took office in 2015. She also stated that she has no intentions of stepping down even though her lover, Sgt. Robert Forrest, suddenly “retired” after 31 years of service with the Nashville police department, of which he spent 14 years supervising the security for three mayors.
Barry refused to say when the affair ended; only repeatedly saying, “It’s over.” She implied that the only reason she came forward now instead of earlier with the admission was because news of the affair was seeping out and making their private lives public.
The press did a great job grilling the mayor, especially over the obvious double standard from the self-proclaimed champion of women. It wasn’t lost on the press that if she were a man in power having an affair with a female subordinate, he would be expected to step down immediately. She refuses to do so while Forrest resigned from his position in January.
Barry desperately tried to defend herself, telling the press her situation was different than what’s going on today:
“It was inappropriate for us to have this affair, but I think that when we talk about the #MeToo movement and those conversations, I think I want to be clear, because I don’t want to muddy the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement is about women who have been sexually harassed and economically disadvantaged for hundreds of years. This is about two middle-aged consenting adults who have feelings for each other and were human and have failed.”
One report pressed and noted that the pattern is exactly the same: “The subordinate resigns and the boss stays.” Barry said that questions as to why Forrest resigned should be directed at him.
Another report pushed back harder, reminding Barry that Forrest resigned due to “behavior unbecoming of an officer” and asked her if she was “claiming women’s privilege… by not taking responsibility and not doing the stand-up thing and resigning.”
She bit back, “He retired.”
The reporter didn’t back down: “That’s equivalent. Aren’t you giving women’s rights a bad smell, here, because you’re not doing what a man would be expected to do in your position?”
Again, Barry insisted she was not being hypocritical in the least and wants to continue her Democratic agenda for Nashvillians, which includes extremely expensive transit plans.
However, voters are demanding to know before they hand over that money if they also paid for the lovers’ trysts and other perks.
Barry has racked up nearly double the out-of-town trips of her predecessor, Mayor Karl Dean, it was mentioned during the press conference. She has journeyed to both coasts of the U.S. and places in between. She also traveled to Athens, Greece — and Paris, the City of Lights, widely acknowledged as a romantic destination.
The mayor denies she and Forrest had the affair while he was on duty, being paid by taxpayers.
He averaged $34,000 a year in overtime for the last three years of former Mayor Karl Dean’s term, NewsChannel 5 reported.
But after Barry took office, Forrest’s overtime pay increased to just below $60,000 in fiscal year 2015-2016.
The next year, that increased to more than $75,000, bringing his total pay to $157,187 in fiscal year 2016-2017.
Barry insists these trips and bonuses were purely “professional.”
She believes voters can trust her to deliver on the promises she made.
“This is not a tragedy, this is a mistake,” Barry said. “I didn’t stop being human when I became mayor.”
Watch the press conference below:
Posts
