Colom campaign starts race with fake call to Hyde-Smith

• The campaign stunt by the newly announced Democrat candidate results in the MSGOP referring the ploy to the FBI and DOJ for impersonating a federal officer.

As the sun set on his first day as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom called up his likely general election opponent, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, to “wish her a good night.”

“Alright everybody, I just announced that I’m running for United State Senate against Cindy Hyde-Smith,” Colom said in the video. “This is not personal. I’m going to call her and wish her good night. Let’s see if she answers.”

A woman’s voice is heard answering the phone, to which Colom says, “I can’t believe she answered.”

Colom goes on to unload a litany of campaign talking points over the call, until he closes with, “Bless your heart, OK?”

However, the call was staged and the person on the other end of the line was not Hyde-Smith. The social media post was merely a veiled campaign advertisement from the Democrats’ preferred candidate.

READ MORE: Democrats get their man: Colom’s entry in Mississippi U.S. Senate race has been years in the making

Magnolia Tribune confirmed that the voice Colom claimed to be Hyde-Smith was indeed not the Republican Senator.

Hyde-Smith’s campaign manager, Jake Monssen, said, “Already lying on day one,” of the Colom campaign ploy.

“It took less than a day for the ‘transgender defender’ to start grooming voters,” Monssen said, a reference to Hyde-Smith criticism of Colom opposing legislation to protect female athletes from biological males.

On Thursday, the Mississippi Republican Party sent a letter to the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Mississippi, the U.S. Attorney in North Mississippi, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Fraud Section, referring Colom for a potential violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 912.

That code section states, “Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the  authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts  as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper,  document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more  than three years, or both.”

As a sitting U.S Senator, Hyde-Smith is considered a federal officer.

MSGOP chairman Mike Hurst, a former U.S. Attorney himself, writes that while some may chalk the social media post up to “dirty politics,” “impersonating the voice of a sitting United States Senator is not politics as usual and is not something to be taken lightly.”

“Rather, Colom appears to be attempting to falsely impersonate Senator Hyde-Smith and fraudulently use Senator Hyde-Smith’s voice to trick people into supporting him, donating to him, and voting for him, that is, to “obtain[] any money, paper, document, or thing of value[.],” Hurst contends.

Hurst goes on to state that Colom’s conduct is not only unbecoming of a sitting District Attorney, “but more concerningly is a potential federal crime from which Colom is specifically intending to benefit personally and financially.”

“The U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted much less serious cases than this, such as the young man prosecuted for impersonating a chief of staff to a U.S. Congressman in order to secure admission and special privileges at a restaurant and field passes to a football game,” Hurst writes, adding, “Americans expect and demand that campaigns and elections be fair and free from criminal  acts. And, without the enforcement of our laws, our democratic republic will suffer greatly. Thus, those who fraudulently impersonate elected United States officials and intentionally violate our laws for their own benefit and personal gain should be held to account and brought to justice.”

Colom has not issued a statement or response to the MSGOP’s referral of the campaign stunt.

UPDATE:

Thursday afternoon, the Colom campaign sent a statement to Magnolia Tribune saying the video was parodying a popular TikTok trend. They say the voice was clearly not Cindy Hyde-Smith, but went on to reference a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding parodying public figures as protected political speech (Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 – 1988).

“Cindy Hyde-Smith and her backers are so worried about her re-election that they’ve resorted to bogus complaints about social media parodies, which are core protected First Amendment speech,” Colom’s campaign stated. “Hyde-Smith’s record of giving tax breaks to millionaires in California and New York, slashing Medicaid for tens of thousands of Mississippians, and putting eight Mississippi hospitals at risk of closing gives her plenty of reason to be worried and in 2026, Mississippians will send Scott Colom to the Senate to fight for Mississippians over D.C. politics.”