Mayor's Trips With Bodyguard Ramped Up During Affair

NASHVILLE, TN -- During her first nine months in office, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry took just two trips with her then-security chief Rob Forrest, both of which included other Metro personnel. In the next 16 months, the two traveled together 26 times, including 10 times alone.

Though Barry has given conflicting answers as to when her affair with the now-retired 31-year Metro Nashville Police veteran began - her answers have ranged from shortly after she took office in September 2015 to several months after that date to some time in the spring or summer of 2016 - it's clear from Metro's travel records that as the affair intensified, so did Barry and Forrest's time alone on taxpayer-funded trips.

Barry has declined to say when the affair ended beyond saying that it is now over. Barry and Forrest stopped taking trips together in October 2017.

The mayor's office insists that the uptick in trips has nothing to do with Barry and Forrest's relationship, but was simply coincidental as it timed with a recommendation from MNPD Chief Steve Anderson to change Barry's security protocol.

"You will see a security detail traveled sporadically with Mayor Barry until mid-to-late 2016. This was based on the recommendations of the Police Department that Mayor Barry have police detail on all official business trips, increases in terrorist attacks and mass shootings both domestic and international, and because we had an opportunity to learn what worked best in terms of logistics for travel," spokesman Sean Braisted said in a statement Tuesday.

The mayor's office has refuted allegations that tax dollars funded the affair, saying that, based on Anderson's recommendation, she would have been traveling with security regardless. Though he led the detail, Forrest, however, was not the only member of Barry's security team and its incontrovertible that he travelled with the mayor numerous times on trips paid for by Metro tax dollars.

The Metro Council took the extraordinary step Tuesday to exercise its investigative and subpoena power - only the second time that power has been invoked in Metro history - to look into potential improprieties and misuse of taxpayer dollars connected to the affair.

Barry said she welcomes any investigation. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation isconducting its own probe after a request from District Attorney General Glenn Funk.

Image via Office of the Mayor