Editor, Commonwealth:
This newspaper recently ran an editorial (“Is state auditor protecting his party?” Sept. 6) that questioned my handling of Mississippi’s largest public fraud scheme, the welfare scandal — the one that my office revealed in early 2020.
As best I can tell from the meandering editorial, the chief complaint the paper makes is that I didn’t make public some text messages where Gov. Tate Reeves’ brother, Todd, asked me how his friend, Brett Favre, could return some of the welfare money the state gave Favre. For anyone who says I should have put parts of our investigative file (like these text messages, emails or other documents) on the internet, you must understand we do not do that. My office doesn’t put our investigative materials out there, no matter how many journalists, who are desperate for clicks, want them. We don’t do it in $100 thefts, and we don’t do it in $100 million misappropriation schemes. We do not do this because complex cases like this should be handled by the appropriate authorities, not writers desperate for people to buy their papers.
Shad White
We’ve already seen the danger of newspapers trying criminal cases in their columns instead of the courtroom. For example, Mississippi Today’s CEO claimed that Gov. Phil Bryant “embezzled” welfare money a few months ago in order to win some journalism awards. The CEO lied, she knows Bryant has never been charged with a crime, and she had to apologize for it.
In this case, we have, however, turned over our investigative file to the FBI/Department of Justice. They’ve had the evidence for more than three years. If Mississippi’s Democrats and journalists believe there is some massive coverup among Republicans to make this DHS scandal go away, they have forgotten that it was a Republican (me) who told them about it in the first place, and they must somehow believe Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is in on the coverup.
Do you honestly believe Grandpa Joe and I cooked up a plan to protect Republican Govs. Phil Bryant and Tate Reeves? Come on. Time to put down the medical marijuana.
Moreover, when it comes to the texts from Todd Reeves, what should I have done? Ignored the offer to return the money? After my office told the state about this scandal, I was and have been eager to collect as much of the taxpayers’ money back as possible. Todd Reeves, whom I do not know well and texted me for the first time ever to ask about returning money, asked how Mr. Favre should make out the check. I told him. I gave Mr. Favre credit for returning the money because, at the moment, my team and I had no knowledge that Mr. Favre was aware of the purpose of the funds he’d received.
We later learned through additional investigation that Mr. Favre knew the money was for people in “shelters,” etc. (his words) and that he hoped to hide this from the public. Anyone who thinks I’ve been overly kind to Mr. Favre over the past few years has to have been asleep. The man has sued me, repeatedly excoriated me on social media, and his lawyers have gone after me in the press. For what it’s worth, I don’t care. I’m just doing my job and telling you what happened to the money.
My approach to Mr. Favre and my willingness to be brutally honest about what happened here should stand as proof that I’m not worried about the political fallout from this case. Anyone worried about the politics wouldn’t have gone after a Hall of Fame quarterback who walks on water for a lot of Mississippians. I’ve already been confronted in church, in social settings, and at the barbershop by people who’ve told me I shouldn’t investigate all the “nice people” who benefited from their welfare money. I couldn’t care less. I’m here to do my job. If you want someone who will take it easy on people, or someone who will splash investigative records out for everyone to see while courts are considering these cases, vote for someone else.
As far as I’m concerned, my team at the Office of the State Auditor has handled this case in a textbook manner. We unraveled the largest and most complex public fraud case ever in Mississippi. We saved the state millions in additional welfare funds that were about to be misspent. And we are letting prosecutors and judges — the appropriate authorities — decide who is to blame instead of the media.
Shad White
State Auditor of Mississippi
