JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Former Governor Phil Bryant (R-Miss.) said he intends to sue Mississippi Today over their reporting on his links to the TANF fraud scandal.
The former governor notified Mississippi Today through a letter, which was published on bryanttexts.com. Bryant believes that statements made by Mississippi Today CEO Mary Margaret White defamed him.
In February 2023, White purportedly told a conference, “We’re the newsroom that broke the story about $77 million in welfare funds intended for the poorest people in the poorest state in the nation being embezzled by a former governor and his bureaucratic cronies.”
The letter also said Mississippi Today executive editor Adam Ganucheau and the reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize, Anna Wolfe, falsely claimed in a podcast that Mississippi Today employees “had never stated that former-Governor Bryant had committed a crime.”
The state auditor announced in February 2020 that criminal charges were brought against six people, including a former Mississippi Department of Human Services executive director who had been chosen by Bryant. The announcement came weeks after Bryant, a Republican, finished his second and final term as governor.
Mississippi Today’s extensive investigation includes text messages between Bryant and key defendants in the case. As of May 2023, Bryant is neither a criminal defendant or a target of the state’s civil lawsuit over TANF misspending.
Mississippi law says anyone who intends to sue for libel or slander must give written notice before a lawsuit is filed, and that a news organization has 10 days to issue a correction, apology or retraction.
Henry Laird, Mississippi Today’s attorney, said, “We have received the demand for retraction from Gov. Bryant’s attorney. We’re reviewing it carefully so that we can reply to that demand as quickly as possible.”
State Auditor Shad White has said that from 2016 to 2019, the Mississippi Department of Human Services misspent more than $77 million in welfare money. Prosecutors have said the department gave money to nonprofit organizations that spent it on projects such as a $5 million volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi — a project for which retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre agreed to raise money.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services, with a new director, filed a civil lawsuit last year against Favre and more than three dozen other people and businesses to try to recover more than $20 million of the misspent welfare money. No criminal charges have been brought against Favre.
Bryant is not among those being sued, but attorneys for some of the defendants in the civil suit have filed court papers that include text-message exchanges between Bryant, Favre and others about spending welfare money on the volleyball arena, using a lease arrangement because welfare money can’t be spent on construction. Bryant last week released more than 400 pages of his own text messages related to the welfare fraud investigation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.