If Gov. Tate Reeves and his welfare chief, Bob Anderson, were trying to shift a focus in the state’s welfare scandal away from those highly connected to the University of Southern Mississippi, they have failed miserably.
Their decision last week to fire Brad Pigott, the attorney who was trying to recover some of the tens of millions of misspent or stolen taxpayer dollars, has only made people more suspicious about what went down in Hattiesburg.
And while Reeves and Anderson can try to limit what an attorney who answers to them does, they can’t limit those who don’t.
Exhibit A would be Gerry Bufkin.
Bufkin, whose Ridgeland law firm represents disgraced educator Nancy New, has taken up the inquiry that Pigott had in mind but which was short-circuited by his firing.
Bufkin has issued subpoenas to former Gov. Phil Bryant, the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation, the state Attorney General’s Office and the state Institutions of Higher Learning regarding communications they had about the construction of a women’s volleyball facility at USM and its financing.
A big chunk of the money for the project, $5 million, came from welfare funds channeled through New and her nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center. New and her son Zach New tried to disguise the gift as a lease payment.
What Bufkin appears to be trying to show is that the $5 million misappropriation was not the News’ idea but someone else’s, and that there were a whole lot of folks, inside and outside of government, in on the scheme.
“We’re going to find the truth, even if we have to drag it kicking and screaming into the light,” the attorney told Mississippi Today.
The News’ legal representatives have already made an accusation along these same lines about another eye-raising expenditure of welfare funds — the $1.1 million given to former NFL quarterback Brett Favre for speeches and other appearances that Mississippi’s state auditor says Favre did not perform. The News claim that Bryant directed the payment to Favre, an allegation that the former governor — and former Nancy New buddy — has denied.
According to Mississippi Today’s digging, it might have been other toes than Bryant’s that Brad Pigott was stepping on with his interest in the welfare funding of the USM volleyball facility.
The online news organization found that at least 11 board members on the USM Athletic Foundation as well as its lobbyist had given to Reeves’ political campaigns.
South Mississippi and the USM clique have been important to Reeves’ political success. In the 2019 governor’s race, according to Mississippi Today’s calculation, the Republican picked up almost a fourth of his vote total from Hattiesburg and south of there.
Would Reeves, with a possible tough reelection campaign coming up next year, try to derail an investigation to protect this base of support? That’s a question he needs to answer.
