Open question · Research date 2026-09-17
Identity check required: federal filing ties a Redbird Strategies business to convicted Tennessee operative Cade Cothren
Recorded status: open identity-resolution question; no attribution yet
This is a dated research record. Its qualifications and open questions are part of the account. Association alone does not establish wrongdoing or control.
A March 28, 2025 federal prosecution filing in United States v. Casada et al. states that bank records for Cade Cothren's other business entities included 'Redbird Strategies' and says prosecutors intended to show that Cothren concealed his identity when conducting political business. DOJ later reported that Cothren and former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada were convicted and sentenced in the Phoenix Solutions bribery/fraud case. Separately, Idaho filings show a payee named Redbird Strategies received $597,302 across Idaho committees, and the current site for Redbird Strategies, LLC describes a full-service political firm but discloses no personnel or location in its indexed text. The same-name, same-industry match is significant enough to investigate, but there is not yet sufficient evidence that Idaho's Redbird payee is Cothren's entity. Required match points: Idaho payee address/EIN, Tennessee entity record and control history, bank/payee account identifiers, website domain registration or archived contact data, and invoices/W-9s from Idaho committees. Do not attribute the Idaho work to Cothren until one of those identifiers matches.
Source references
- United States' Response to Defendants' Motions in Limine, United States v. Casada et al. — Case 3:22-cr-00282, Document 278, filed 03/28/2025, PDF pages 4-5, lines 112-125 in extracted text
- Redbird Strategies — Homepage and contact section
- Idaho Sunshine — Browse Expenditure Data — Payee Redbird Strategies; Idaho expenditure records