There’s a mess in Mississippi. And it may take the federal government to clean it up.
Native son and Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre has landed in a welfare-funds fiasco. From $1.1 million in alleged money for nothing (he denied that he was paid for not doing anything, but he also paid back the money) to business dealings with former governor Phil Bryant to questions regarding $5 million for a new volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi, Favre seems to crocs-deep (and deeper) in the broader scandal. The recent news that Mississippi fired a lawyer who had launched an effort to get to the bottom of the money paid to USM resulted in claims from that lawyer regarding the possibility that the move was part of a politically-motivated effort to conceal certain facts.
Enter the federal government, potentially. Deep in Sunday’s item from the New York Times reside a couple of paragraphs as to the possibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice taking real action. The FBI has been looking at the scandal for more than two years. And Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, per the Times, sent a letter this month to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting that the DOJ focused on Favre and Bryant.
“The people of Mississippi deserve answers,” Thompson wrote to Garland.
If those answers aren’t going to be sought by the Mississippi government, the federal government needs to intervene. This whole thing has stunk to high heaven from the get go. Hopefully, someone will fully explore the source of the stink -- and take any and all appropriate steps to eradicate it.
