Today, Jim Hood has decided to amend his January 2007 complaint against the Facilities Group to include state criminal charges of fraud. This is to piggyback on the joint prosecution brought forth by State Auditor Stacey Pickering and the FBI/USDOJ, which General Hood was completely left out of.
This newly found zeal for criminal prosecution comes on the heels of Attorney General Hood’s absolute unwillingness to prosecute state criminal charges against some of his largest campaign contributors including Dickie Scruggs, Joey Langston, Zach Scruggs, Steve Patterson and Sidney Backstrom. He basically declared that state charges were unnecessary. All have since pleaded guilty to felonies of charges stemming from a federal investigation of elaborate bribery schemes of state court judges.
On 2/18, Hood interviewed with the Clarion Ledger Editorial Board where he was specifically asked whether or not state charges should be pursued on his campaign contributers and Special Assistant Attorneys General, who have now pleaded guilty to federal charges. His response was that “it would be like prosecuting a relative”.
Then, shortly thereafter to WLBT, he opined . . . .
“(District attorneys) handle prosecutions in their districts,” he says. Those DA’s are the primary source of prosecutions. The AG’s come in and assist them at their request, but it’s not our primary responsibility.
“There’s no statutory authority for any kind of special prosecutor,” he says. “We don’t need it, the Federal Government is doing a fine job, I’m satisfied with the job they’re doing. The FBI has all the assets in the world, they have the tools like wiretapping ability that we are asking for here.”
This certainly begs the question of why the Yalobusha County DA is not prosecuting the Facilities Group for criminal fraud instead of the AG’s office.
So we have gone from “the Federal Government is doing a fine job” when it comes to the non-prosecution of his own Special Assistant Attorneys General for bribing judges to “me too” prosecutions so as not to be left out of the political points to be scored by the Beef Plant . . . all in the span of a month’s time.
Magnolia Tribune
