Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey not seeking re-election

@BrianKelsey
I will not be running for reelection due to a recent, exciting change to my personal life, and I look forward to spending more time with my family.

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Senator Brian Kelsey not seeking re-election, faces charges for campaign finance violation

former Sen. Brian Kelsey wants to withdraw guilty plea​

According to court documents, Kelsey, 44, admitted that he conspired to and did secretly and unlawfully funnel money from multiple sources, including his own Tennessee State Senate campaign committee, to his authorized federal campaign committee when he ran for Congress in 2016.

Kelsey and his co-conspirators, including Joshua Smith, also caused a national political organization to make illegal, excessive contributions to Kelsey’s federal campaign committee by secretly coordinating with the organization on advertisements supporting Kelsey’s federal candidacy and causing false reports of contributions and expenditures to be filed with the Federal Election Commission.

In the motion, Kelsey's attorney cites his father's death and raising twins and a toddler as part of the reason he entered into the plea agreement "hastily."

Additional coverage - part of his regret is that he apparently didn't realize he would lose his law license.

Waverly Crenshaw Jr., the court’s chief district judge, rejected Kelsey’s change-of-plea request in May.​

Former Tenn. state senator sentenced to 21 months in campaign finance scheme​

Brian Kelsey said in a statement that he will ‘always regret’ his actions and is ‘sorry for letting down my constituents’​

A few days after he was indicted, Kelsey tweeted that the charges were a “political witch hunt” and that President Biden’s administration was “trying to take me out because I’m conservative.”

In October, [his co-conspirator] Smith pleaded guilty to helping solicit and spend $25,000. The next month, Kelsey pleaded guilty to his five charges. He did not run for reelection in the state Senate. Kelsey, who was also an attorney, had his state license suspended in December.

Joshua Smith, 46, who owns a Nashville social club that Kelsey belonged to and was accused of conspiring with Kelsey, was also sentenced Friday. Smith, who pleaded guilty in October to soliciting money in support of Kelsey’s campaign, was sentenced to five years of probation.

‘God used Donald Trump to save me’: Ex-Tenn. senator gets pardon 15 days after entering prison
President Donald Trump issued a pardon to former Tennessee state Sen. Brian Kelsey, just 15 days after that Republican began serving a 21-month prison sentence for a campaign finance conspiracy criminal conviction.

Kelsey entered the Ashland prison camp on Feb. 24, a month after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition to hear an appeal in his case, and about a month after he submitted a request for a pardon.