NASHVILLE — A lawmaker who shares an office suite with Rep. Jim Cobb, R-Spring City, said Friday she thinks the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation should drop a probe into her colleague’s placement of a digital recorder under an administrative aide’s desk.

“If you’re asking my personal opinion, I think they should drop it,” said Rep. Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, for whom the aide, Paul Overholser, also works.

Rep. Cobb has said the incident was intended as a “prank,” but Mr. Overholser, uncertain where the recorder came from, complained to House officials. House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, D-Covington, called in the TBI.

Rep. Harwell said Mr. Overholser “made me aware” that he had discovered the recorder while she was at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis this week. At the time, Mr. Overholser was unaware of who planted the device, which was attached with Velcro underneath the desk.

“I have not talked to Rep. Cobb about this,” Rep. Harwell said. “What I do accept is that it was just something internal between Rep. Cobb and the assistant. I mean by that, there wasn’t someone outside planting a tape recorder in our office.”

House Minority Leader Jason Mumpower, R-Bristol, said Rep. Cobb told him what he told the Times Free Press earlier this week — that the incident was a prank that went awry.

“I really don’t know anything else other than that he really was in a joking way trying to do this,” Rep. Mumpower said.

But Rep. Mumpower said he believes calling in the TBI was “the right thing” given the uncertainty of the situation at the time. And now that an official investigation has begun, it should continue and the results should be made public, Rep. Mumpower said.

“I don’t think you can just turn on and off an investigation,” he said.

Rep. Mumpower cited his own recent experience in which a file containing information about DUI arrests of a House Republican candidate wound up on his legislative desk. Tennessee Republicans initially questioned whether controversial Tennessee Highway Patrol Lt. Ron Shirley, who now is being fired for having accessed drivers license and other records of 182 people, was involved.

A Democratic operative later stepped forward to say he had gathered the information from publicly available court records and placed the documents in Rep. Mumpower’s unlocked office as a “hardball” maneuver.

Rep. Cobb alluded to the Mumpower office incident as part of the impetus behind his practical joke effort.

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