White’s ‘Mississippi Swindle’ hits shelves, last nerves

• Auditor Shad White’s criticism of Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst has drawn sharp rebuke, with both describing ‘Mississippi Swindle’ as a “fiction.” White’s not backing down.

Auditor Shad White’s national profile exploded on the wings of his office’s investigation into Mississippi’s TANF welfare scandal. Back home, news of a “tell-all” book raised eyebrows, along with the blood pressures of some politicos.

Since the release of Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America, politicians and reporters aplenty have been blowing up each other’s phones. Netflix is on the prowl interviewing folks, and there’s a rumored Amazon deal in the works.

The book details the Auditor’s investigation into the largest public corruption scandal in Mississippi history. It recounts the abuse of the TANF program by a cadre of unscrupulous actors, including former Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) Executive Director John Davis and non-profit operator Nancy New.

Not everyone likes it. Among those miffed by their portrayals, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Mike Hurst. In separate interviews with Magnolia Tribune, both Fitch’s office and Hurst described Mississippi Swindle‘s treatment of their involvement as a “fiction.” The book treats Fitch as being uninterested in doing her job and Hurst as overly eager to take the glory. Fitch’s office raised additional questions about the ethics of writing the book.

Not one to shy from sharp elbows, White’s fired back, defending both his record and the book.

Fitch’s Office Claims White’s Recollection is “Fiction”

Earlier this year, while representing Auditor White in a defamation lawsuit brought by NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre, Attorney General Lynn Fitch got a sneak peak of Mississippi Swindle. After reading it, her office withdrew its representation of White in the lawsuit. Fitch contended at the time that the content of the book created a conflict of interest.

Since release, Fitch’s office has objected to a passage in the book that described a February 2020 meeting between the Auditor’s and Attorney General’s Office:

“When new attorney general Lynn Fitch was sworn in, I took that matter to her and her two deputy AGs. High in their office building over the Jackson skyline, I suggested one of her attorneys should file a motion in court to commandeer that property before it vanished. My office had no authority to do it. It would take a year and a half before the AG’s office took any kind of action. When they did, they simply told Bob [Anderson] he could hire private lawyers to make seizures if Bob wanted to. Paying those lawyers would cost the state a nice pile of taxpayer dollars while the state attorneys in Fitch’s employ sat on their hands.” –Mississippi Swindle

The implication is clear. White had to tell the Attorney General’s Office how to do its job and they still didn’t do it.

Only according to Michelle Williams, Fitch’s Chief of Staff, the meeting held on February 11, 2020 — five days after White announced the TANF indictments — was not about the TANF scandal. Williams said the meeting, instead, focused on state litigation against Centene over pharmacy benefit management practices. She said White did not dispense the advice contained in the book.

According to Williams, at the close of the meeting, the head of the Attorney General’s criminal division, Mary Helen Wall, questioned why White had brought the TANF case to Owens instead of the AG. White purportedly told Walls he had “known Owens forever,” but that was the extent of the conversation.

Williams theorizes the real reason White chose Owens over the Attorney General’s or U.S. Attorney’s Office is because he did not view a “Democratic District Attorney who had just left his job suing the state as a threat to his ambitions.”

Fitch, Lazy or Stymied?

White took new aim at Fitch on Tuesday, saying “she knows the book tells the truth about how she failed to prosecute a soul, failed to seize any property bought with stolen welfare money, and forced the state to hire private attorneys to get the welfare money back because she won’t do her job.”

Creating a Trump-style nickname, he continued, “That decision by Lazy Lynn has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and counting.”

Williams said the Attorney General’s Office had no authority to take the case from Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens after it commenced. She claims that the Auditor’s Office also slowed the Attorney General from pursuing civil litigation to recoup funds by holding back investigative files.

“When Shad White finally shared the evidence, it was in the kind of slow drip that makes successful litigation more complicated. The first of it was disclosed a year and a half after White and Owens announced the indictments, and the rest of it a whole year later in 2022,” Williams alleged.

Williams said “Shad White made his decision early on to make his case on Twitter and in front of cameras instead of doing it methodically, the way a serious auditor or attorney would. He made a choice to buddy up with Jody Owens who could count the number of days he’d been a prosecutor instead of taking the evidence to the U.S. Attorney or the Attorney General.”

Owens had been sworn into office in January of 2020. He currently is at the center of a separate public corruption scandal after the FBI raided his office and business earlier this year. The purported details of Owen’s scandal, if true, will make for an even better book.

Addressing Ethics Concerns

Critics of Mississippi Swindle have questioned whether it was appropriate for White to write the book during an ongoing investigation, and also whether he is legally allowed to make money off of its sale.

In response to the first concern, White told Magnolia Tribune, “this book is not being released in the middle of an investigation. It’s the end. It’s been more than four years since my office made its arrests.” He points out examples of similar books written by public officials across the country before prosecutions were completed.

On the question of his financial gain, White says leading the charge on the TANF scandal has cost far more than he gained writing Mississippi Swindle. “My first personal legal bill defending myself from the Favre lawsuit was three times the advance I received for writing the book.” It’s unclear what additional monies may be earned from book sales or the rumored deal with Amazon.

Mississippi’s Ethics in Government Act provides: “No public servant shall use his official position to obtain, or attempt to obtain, pecuniary benefit for himself other than that compensation provided for by law, or to obtain, or attempt to obtain, pecuniary benefit for any relative or any business with which he is associated.”

The law also says: “No person may intentionally use or disclose information gained in the course of or by reason of his official position or employment as a public servant in any way that could result in pecuniary benefit for himself, any relative, or any other person, if the information has not been communicated to the public or is not public information.”

Williams told Magnolia Tribune, “The people should be able to expect that those they elect will comply with the letter and the spirit of that law. Shad White chose to work for the people. And while still on the people’s payroll, he chose to get paid for writing a book about that work and about his previously private, undisclosed investigative conversations.”

She added, “This seems to be the very situation the Ethics in Government Act was meant to address.” 

White emphasized a statement made by Tom Hood from the Mississippi Ethics Commission. Hood told Mississippi Today, “The Ethics Commission has advised in numerous opinions that public servants are not prohibited from taking general knowledge or experience gained through the course of their government service and using it in the private sector.”

Picking Jody Owens over Mike Hurst

Fitch is not the only Republican with a bee in their bonnet. Among its intra-party flashpoints, Mississippi Swindle offers an account of White’s decision to team with Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens instead of then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst to launch the first phase of TANF prosecutions.

White’s rationale was two-fold. First, he believed that Owens’ party affiliation as a Democrat would insulate the investigation from accusations of partisan favoritism of prominent Republicans tied up in the scandal:

“Having a Democrat like Jody on the team making the final decisions on charging and sentencing recommendations would be a good thing. No one would accuse Jody of doing any favors for wealthy Republicans who stole from poor people.” –Mississippi Swindle

Second, he believed the state could prosecute the case more quickly than the federal government and cut off the illegal use of TANF dollars before more could be wasted:

“[T]he most important factor in the decision was speed. I knew if we handed the case to the feds, it would be at least a year before anyone was indicted. The FBI would want to check our work, if not redo all of what we’d spent the last few months doing. On top of that, DHS was actively trying to hand Nancy [New] more money.” –Mississippi Swindle

The book portrays Hurst as becoming increasingly hostile when White refused to cave into demands of turning the case over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. White’s book offers theories on Hurst’s motivation, including the possibility that Hurst viewed White as a threat to his political ambitions.

The Mike Hurst Side of the Story

Mike Hurst wants people to know Mississippi Swindle is “a work of historical fiction.” He told Magnolia Tribune the reason the U.S. Attorney’s Office should have handled the TANF case was prosecutorial experience, resources, and tools. He says White’s memory of meetings and conversations that occurred are inaccurate and that the book is riddled with “rumors.”

Hurst points out that the FBI has the ability to conduct wiretaps, unlike state law enforcement, and that those are often key in complex public corruption cases. He also notes that the funds involved were all federal funds, signaling the Department of Justice’s overriding interest.

Hurst disputes White’s insistence on speed as the primary objective of an investigation, but also pushes back on the idea that the U.S. Attorney’s Office would have moved slowly.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced indictments against Nancy New, and her son Zach, in March of 2021, approximately 13 months after the state court indictments in Hinds County and within a couple months of Hurst stepping down from the post.

Hurst shared with Magnolia Tribune a series of text messages between he and White, which reflected Hurst’s desire to get involved prior to White announcing the state indictments with Owens.

Hurst says in mid-January of 2020 he caught wind of the months-long investigation by the Auditor’s Office into the TANF scandal. Texts show that he reached out to schedule a meeting with White.

The pair met on January 27th. A Hurst text following the meeting contained a request for the Auditor’s investigators to meet with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for a briefing on White’s investigation.

The pair scheduled time for the briefing on February 5th, but the meeting was later postponed at White’s request. The following day, February 6, 2020, White, alongside Owens, announced the findings of his investigation and the indictment of six defendants.

Hurst put out a press release the same day suggesting that the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office had been kept in the dark, only finding out about “the indictments and arrrests at the same time as the general public.” White described the release as “asinine and unnecessary” in his book.

Ratcheting up the Rhetoric

As Hurst moved in recent days to respond to Mississippi Swindle, White ratcheted up his criticism, more directly questioning Hurst’s ambition, ability, and professionalism.

“The truth, unfortunately, is that Mike was not a particularly good U.S. Attorney. Consider that he took a meeting with Nancy New while it was publicly known we were investigating her,” White said in a statement he shared with Magnolia Tribune.

He continued, “Everyone knows why Mike is trying to criticize me and play Monday morning quarterback now. It’s because my book pointed out his sloppy, unprofessional behavior. Mike is a wannabe politician who knows the truth about this case threatens his ability to launch another failed run, so he’s mad.”

In 2015, Hurst challenged long-time incumbent, Jim Hood (D), for Attorney General. Hood defeated Hurst narrowly before unsuccessfully running for governor in 2019 against current Governor Tate Reeves.

Speaking about the interview of Nancy New, Hurst told Magnolia Tribune the meeting included an FBI agent and two other attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He said, “prosecutors regularly meet with targets of investigations and those meetings regularly lead to the discovery of new evidence. Shad isn’t a prosecutor, so he probably does not know what to do when a target contacts a prosecutor.”

Hurst shared statements by President Trump, Governor Tate Reeves, U.S. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, as well as law enforcement and prosecution associations, recognizing the positive impact of his service as U.S. Attorney. Among the achievements noted was a 174 percent increase in the number of indictments over the course of his tenure.

Hurst left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in January of 2021 and was recently selected to lead the Mississippi Republican Party.

He told Magnolia Tribune, “when I became Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, I pledged not to violate Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment and speak ill of another Republican. But when others lie, spread rumors, or otherwise stretch the truth for their own benefit and personal gain, especially about me and my family, I have a duty and responsibility to set the record straight. The events concocted by the State Auditor about me are not factually accurate.”

Hurst said he had “an open door policy to those who want to reconcile past errors and seek to right wrongs.”

Mississippi Today Not Spared

News outlet Mississippi Today won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the TANF scandal. But it’s also been embroiled in controversy over how it framed that coverage. Former Governor Phil Bryant is currently suing the publication and several members of its staff for defamation.

On Tuesday, Missisippi Today columnist Geoff Pender took aim at White’s book and the response its drawn. After mentioning Mississippi Swindle’s descriptions of certain key players in the TANF scandal, including his colleague Anna Wolfe, Pender worked in his own description of White:

“White, 38, is himself a small, slender elfish looking fellow with large ears and a receding hair line.”

In response to the story, White volunteered:

“I’m going to keep telling the truth, regardless of whether it hurts someone’s feelings, like Hurst or Fitch or the liberals at Mississippi Today. Mississippi Today’s childish take on me and the book betray an intense personal bitterness and envy. And they’re mad that I talked about Anna Wolfe’s alleged personal connection with Jacob Black. I’m not sure what they’re doing over there, but it’s not journalism.”

Black was a deputy at MDHS under John Davis. He brought some of the initial information about misdeeds at MDHS to then-Governor Bryant’s office, but has since been named as civil defendant in the state’s effort to recoup funds. While rumors have swirled about Wolfe’s potential sources covering the TANF story, the nature of the “alleged personal connection” referenced is unclear.