Mississippi Today

Gov. Tate Reeves’ brother used backchannel to state auditor to help clean up Brett Favre welfare mess

Published

2 years ago

August 31, 2023

Gov. Tate Reeves’ brother coordinated with state Auditor Shad White on damage control for former NFL star Brett Favre after an audit first revealed in 2020 that the athlete had received more than $1 million in welfare funds, according to text messages the governor’s political campaign released Thursday.

Todd Reeves, Favre’s friend, had also arranged conversations in early 2020 with Gov. Reeves so that Favre could ask for the governor’s help in funding the University of Southern Mississippi volleyball stadium, one of the centerpieces of the ongoing welfare scandal.

The texts released Thursday show how, on Favre’s behalf, Todd Reeves facilitated the athlete’s repayment of some of the funds and asked for White to make a public statement that “the investigation (shows to this point) Brett has done nothing wrong.”

Meanwhile, attorneys for the state auditor’s office and the attorney general’s office have fought for eight months to withhold these texts from Mississippi Today, who originally requested them. The state argued as recently as Wednesday the texts are part of their investigative file in the welfare case, and publicly releasing them could harm the ongoing welfare scandal investigation.

But on Thursday, as Mississippi Today prepared its story about the withheld records, the Reeves campaign released what they say are the text messages in question.

After Mississippi Today reached out to Todd Reeves and Gov. Reeves’ campaign for comment about the texts and the state’s argument that they are evidence in an ongoing investigation, the Reeves campaign did not respond to the inquiry but instead sent out a media release chastising the news organization for covering the story. Todd Reeves also gave his own quote for the campaign’s release.

“I’ve been friendly with Brett for years, and always heard great things about Shad,” Todd Reeves said in a press release Thursday, distributed by his brother’s gubernatorial campaign. “I didn’t learn anything about this TANF mess or Brett’s dealings with the state until it was front page news. When Brett was considering repaying the funds, he asked me if I could help him get in touch with the auditor to coordinate that–so that’s what I did. I helped money get back in the right hands, not the wrong hands, and I think that’s what most people would have done. Brett believed he had done nothing wrong, and I helped convince him to return the money anyway. Those are the texts in question. I know Mississippi Today is willing to lie about us, so I just wanted to get the truth out.”

Mississippi Today cannot verify if the Reeves campaign released all of the texts sought by the litigation because the news outlet has not been allowed to view the requested records. The Reeves campaign did not respond to follow-up questions about the completeness of the records they released on Thursday, and the attorney general’s office declined to comment.

The news organization first filed a public records request for texts between White and Todd Reeves in December 2022. Additionally, the request also included any of White’s messages or emails that made reference to Todd Reeves. Mississippi Today was denied the records and filed suit against the auditor’s office in January 2023.

Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin reviewed the texts in private, on Mississippi Today’s request, to determine if the documents were, in fact, exempt from public release.

“They obviously relate to the DHS investigation,” Judge Martin said during a hearing Wednesday, after she had seen the records. “There’s no question about that.”

Special Assistant Attorney General Rex Shannon, representing the auditor’s office for the state, argued against releasing the texts on Wednesday, saying:

“Their disclosure may harm that investigation by chilling similar communications in the future.”
“The records in question reveal and confirm the identity of a potential witness.”
“The records in question would potentially disclose investigatory techniques and or the results of those techniques.”
“The records in question, if publicly produced, would potentially impede or jeopardize any prosecution of certain individuals that may result from the DHS investigation.”

White has said several times previously that he has turned over all welfare investigation-related material in his possession to the FBI. While the Mississippi Department of Human Services has sued Favre in its ongoing civil case, overseen by Gov. Reeves, Favre has not faced any criminal charges.

In the early days of Gov. Reeves’ current term, Favre used Todd Reeves as a way to communicate with the governor. Favre, who endorsed Gov. Reeves in his election months earlier, was hoping the governor would help him find public funding to pay for the completed construction of a volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi. Favre had made a guarantee to the university. If he didn’t find the funding somewhere, Favre would have to pay out of his own pocket. According to texts previously released, Todd Reeves would facilitate lines of communication for the athlete.

“Brett, you aren’t bothering me at all and please always feel free to reach out to me anytime,” Todd Reeves texted Favre, according to a previously released text Favre forwarded to Gov. Phil Bryant on Jan. 26, 2020. “I will help any way I can. I will be glad to set something up with Tate. Tell me kind of what the plan in place for funding is/was. Did Gov Bryant mention maybe trying to get it as part of a bond bill for the University?”

At this time, the USM project had already received at least $5 million in funding from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which is supposed to provide monthly cash assistance to very poor families, through a nonprofit run by Nancy New.

Within days and weeks of Favre’s communication with the Reeves brothers in early 2020, the auditor would arrest the two top welfare officials who had been working with Favre and the volleyball project would be outed as part of a sprawling scheme to misuse tens of millions of welfare funds.

White had taken a strong stance against the widespread corruption at MDHS leading up to the May 2020 release of his annual audit, which questioned almost $100 million worth of spending.

But in a press conference describing some of the more egregious findings, White did not draw attention to Favre, whose welfare payment, listed under Favre Enterprises, was tucked in a bullet list on page 18 of the 104-page report. Still, the revelation made national news.

Two days later, Favre repaid $500,000 of the $1.1 million and promised the auditor he would return the additional $600,000 in installments in the coming months. First, the texts show, White sent Todd Reeves the address of where to send the money, then they arranged for an agent to pick up a check at the office of Favre’s agent.

“If possible, Brett would like you to say something along the lines of “the investigation (shows to this point) Brett has done nothing wrong and the monies he is paying back for commercials and Psa’s is from his own good will,” Todd Reeves texted White on May 6, 2020.

White praised Favre in the statement he released the same day: “I want to applaud Mr. Favre for his good faith effort to make this right and make the taxpayers and TANF families whole. To date, we have seen no records indicating Mr. Favre knew that TANF was the program that served as the source of the money he was paid.”

A few weeks later, Todd Reeves texted White, “Just wanted to tell you I appreciate you talking and helping the last couple of weeks.”

The last text Todd Reeves produced Thursday was a message he sent the auditor in September of 2020.

“I think Brett is working to get some more money sent in,” Todd Reeves said. “He’s had some reporters start hounding them again. I’m sure they have contacted your office. He’s just asking not to be thrown under the bus as he is working within the timeline.”

But Favre did not return the remainder of the funds until White issued him an official demand more than a year later in October 2021. By that time, the auditor said Favre also owed $228,000 in interest.

Mississippi Today’s December 2022 records request to the auditor’s office asked for text messages and emails to examine how Todd Reeves, potentially on Favre’s behalf, may have communicated with White during this time period.

“We’re here arguing about the records that belong to the people of the state of Mississippi,” Henry Laird, Mississippi Today’s attorney, told the judge on Wednesday. “These are not the auditor’s records. These are Mississippi’s records. And unless there is an exemption that allows the auditor to say they shouldn’t be produced, they should be produced.”

Judge Martin did not rule whether to release the texts Wednesday. On Thursday, as she continued to decide how to rule and before Mississippi Today published its story about the hearing, the Reeves campaign chose to publicly release texts between Todd Reeves and White.

“While Mr. Reeves has the right to release his text messages, the State Auditor’s Office has not and will not release information regarding a potential or ongoing investigation to protect the integrity of an investigation,” Fletcher Freeman, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office, said in a statement Thursday. “The men and women of the State Auditor’s Office have worked tirelessly to hold those who steal taxpayer’s dollars accountable, and we will continue to work with prosecutors and our federal partners to do so.”

Acknowledging that the texts might not, on their face, appear to be part of an investigative file, Shannon, the state attorney, provided the judge in Wednesday’s hearing with auditor’s office press releases that relate to the content in the texts. Those included a release in May of 2020 about Favre repaying some of the $1.1 million in TANF funds he received; a release in October of 2021 about the auditor demanding the repayment of TANF funds from several people, including Favre for the remaining funds White said he owed; and a release about several guilty pleas in the case.

Mississippi Today’s records request asked for messages sent between Feb. 1, 2020, and June 1, 2020. In this timeframe, White made initial arrests in the welfare fraud case (Feb. 5), Mississippi Today published a story first uncovering that welfare funds had been used to build the volleyball stadium (Feb. 27), and White released his annual audit (May 4), which first revealed the direct welfare payment to Favre. The records request also asked for messages sent between Sept. 1, 2021 and Dec. 31, 2021. In this timeframe, the welfare agency released its commissioned forensic audit, which provided more details about the misspending and prompted White to issue the official demand for repayment from Favre.

In response to a separate request to Gov. Reeves for his texts with Favre prior to becoming governor in 2020, the governor’s office said it was not “in possession or control of any public records responsive to your request.” Before 2020, Reeves served as lieutenant governor in the Mississippi Senate. Generally speaking, lawmakers have used the legislative exemption in the Public Records Act to withhold records from reporters.

Asked about the volleyball stadium at Neshoba County Fair in the summer of 2022, Reeves suggested he didn’t support the idea of using any taxpayer funds to build sports facilities.

“Look I don’t know all the details as to how that came about,” he said. “What I do know is that it doesn’t seem like an expense that I would personally support for TANF dollars. I don’t even like the state building stadiums with general tax dollars.”

However, Favre and Bryant seemed confident Tate Reeves would help.

On election day in November 2019, Favre texted then-Gov. Bryant, “I know it’s Election Day and you are probably busy but while we know who our Governor is presently not to mention arguably the most popular and influential I want to stay on your radar. If our guy wins I’ll feel better about things but if the other guy wins I feel like Nancy and I can forget our vision for Southern Miss.”

“That’s one reason I have been pushing Tate so hard,” Bryant responded. “He has to win. Then we set up a meeting on Wellness Center at USM.”

Gov. Reeves did win, and in late January of 2020, Todd Reeves set up a phone call for Favre and the governor to discuss funding. About a week later, as White was preparing to make arrests, Favre expressed his desire to take Gov. Reeves to see the volleyball stadium, texting, “and it would only be us. I want you to see what your (sic) trying to help me for.”

It’s unclear if Gov. Reeves actually pushed to include funding for the facility in a legislative or other kind of appropriation, but his brother certainly gave Favre the impression that he would.

“I think the angle Tate is looking at is a bond bill according to Todd his brother,” Favre texted Bryant on Feb. 7, 2020, as the fallout from the arrests was still materializing.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

Published

10 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 16:34:00

by Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

Mississippi lawmakers have reached an agreement to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from public schools across the state education system, following the lead of numerous other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump’s administration.

House and Senate lawmakers approved a compromise bill in votes on Tuesday and Wednesday. It will likely head to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves for his signature after it clears a procedural motion.

The agreement between the Republican-dominated chambers followed hours of heated debate in which Democrats, almost all of whom are Black, excoriated the legislation as a setback in the long struggle to make Mississippi a fairer place for minorities. They also said the bill could bog universities down with costly legal fights and erode academic freedom.

Democratic Rep. Bryant Clark, who seldom addresses the entire House chamber from the podium during debates, rose to speak out against the bill on Tuesday. He is the son of the late Robert Clark, the first Black Mississippian elected to the state Legislature since the 1800s and the first Black Mississippian to serve as speaker pro tempore and preside over the House chamber since Reconstruction.

“We are better than this, and all of you know that we don’t need this with Mississippi history,” Clark said. “We should be the ones that say, ‘listen, we may be from Mississippi, we may have a dark past, but you know what, we’re going to be the first to stand up this time and say there is nothing wrong with DEI.'”

Legislative Republicans argued that the measure — which will apply to all public schools from the K-12 level through universities — will elevate merit in education and remove a list of so-called “divisive concepts” from academic settings. More broadly, conservative critics of DEI say the programs divide people into categories of victims and oppressors and infuse left-wing ideology into campus life.

“We are a diverse state. Nowhere in here are we trying to wipe that out,” said Republican Sen. Tyler McCaughn, one of the bill’s authors. “We’re just trying to change the focus back to that of excellence.”

The House and Senate initially passed proposals that differed in who they would impact, what activities they would regulate and how they aim to reshape the inner workings of the state’s education system. Some House leaders wanted the bill to be “semi-vague” in its language and wanted to create a process for withholding state funds based on complaints that almost anyone could lodge. The Senate wanted to pair a DEI ban with a task force to study inefficiencies in the higher education system, a provision the upper chamber later agreed to scrap.

The concepts that will be rooted out from curricula include the idea that gender identity can be a “subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality.” The move reflects another effort to align with the Trump administration, which has declared via executive order that there are only two sexes.

The House and Senate disagreed on how to enforce the measure but ultimately settled on an agreement that would empower students, parents of minor students, faculty members and contractors to sue schools for violating the law.

People could only sue after they go through an internal campus review process and a 25-day period when schools could fix the alleged violation. Republican Rep. Joey Hood, one of the House negotiators, said that was a compromise between the chambers. The House wanted to make it possible for almost anyone to file lawsuits over the DEI ban, while Senate negotiators initially bristled at the idea of fast-tracking internal campus disputes to the legal system.

The House ultimately held firm in its position to create a private cause of action, or the right to sue, but it agreed to give schools the ability to conduct an investigative process and potentially resolve the alleged violation before letting people sue in chancery courts.

“You have to go through the administrative process,” said Republican Sen. Nicole Boyd, one of the bill’s lead authors. “Because the whole idea is that, if there is a violation, the school needs to cure the violation. That’s what the purpose is. It’s not to create litigation, it’s to cure violations.”

If people disagree with the findings from that process, they could also ask the attorney general’s office to sue on their behalf.

Under the new law, Mississippi could withhold state funds from schools that don’t comply. Schools would be required to compile reports on all complaints filed in response to the new law.

Trump promised in his 2024 campaign to eliminate DEI in the federal government. One of the first executive orders he signed did that. Some Mississippi lawmakers introduced bills in the 2024 session to restrict DEI, but the proposals never made it out of committee. With the national headwinds at their backs and several other laws in Republican-led states to use as models, Mississippi lawmakers made plans to introduce anti-DEI legislation.

The policy debate also unfolded amid the early stages of a potential Republican primary matchup in the 2027 governor’s race between State Auditor Shad White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. White, who has been one of the state’s loudest advocates for banning DEI, had branded Hosemann in the months before the 2025 session “DEI Delbert,” claiming the Senate leader has stood in the way of DEI restrictions passing the Legislature.

During the first Senate floor debate over the chamber’s DEI legislation during this year’s legislative session, Hosemann seemed to be conscious of these political attacks. He walked over to staff members and asked how many people were watching the debate live on YouTube.

As the DEI debate cleared one of its final hurdles Wednesday afternoon, the House and Senate remained at loggerheads over the state budget amid Republican infighting. It appeared likely the Legislature would end its session Wednesday or Thursday without passing a $7 billion budget to fund state agencies, potentially threatening a government shutdown.

“It is my understanding that we don’t have a budget and will likely leave here without a budget. But this piece of legislation …which I don’t think remedies any of Mississippi’s issues, this has become one of the top priorities that we had to get done,” said Democratic Sen. Rod Hickman. “I just want to say, if we put that much work into everything else we did, Mississippi might be a much better place.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

House gives Senate 5 p.m. deadline to come to table, or legislative session ends with no state budget

Published

10 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 16:13:00

by Taylor Vance, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

The House on Wednesday attempted one final time to revive negotiations between it and the Senate over passing a state budget.

Otherwise, the two Republican-led chambers will likely end their session without funding government services for the next fiscal year and potentially jeopardize state agencies.

The House on Wednesday unanimously passed a measure to extend the legislative session and revive budget bills that had died on legislative deadlines last weekend.

House Speaker Jason White said he did not have any prior commitment that the Senate would agree to the proposal, but he wanted to extend one last offer to pass the budget. White, a Republican from West, said if he did not hear from the Senate by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, his chamber would end its regular session.

“The ball is in their court,” White said of the Senate. “Every indication has been that they would not agree to extend the deadlines for purposes of doing the budget. I don’t know why that is. We did it last year, and we’ve done it most years.”

But it did not appear likely Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would comply.

The Mississippi Legislature has not left Jackson without setting at least most of the state budget since 2009, when then Gov. Haley Barbour had to force them back to set one to avoid a government shutdown.

The House measure to extend the session is now before the Senate for consideration. To pass, it would require a two-thirds majority vote of senators. But that might prove impossible. Numerous senators on both sides of the aisle vowed to vote against extending the current session, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the chamber said such an extension likely couldn’t pass.

Senate leadership seemed surprised at the news that the House passed the resolution to negotiate a budget, and several senators earlier on Wednesday made passing references to ending the session without passing a budget.

“We’ll look at it after it passes the full House,” Senate President Pro Tempore Dean Kirby said.

The House and Senate, each having a Republican supermajority, have fought over many issues since the legislative session began early January.

But the battle over a tax overhaul plan, including elimination of the state individual income tax, appeared to cause a major rift. Lawmakers did pass a tax overhaul, which the governor has signed into law, but Senate leaders cried foul over how it passed, with the House seizing on typos in the Senate’s proposal that accidentally resembled the House’s more aggressive elimination plan.

The Senate had urged caution in eliminating the income tax, and had economic growth triggers that would have likely phased in the elimination over many years. But the typos essentially negated the triggers, and the House and governor ran with it.

The two chambers have also recently fought over the budget. White said he communicated directly with Senate leaders that the House would stand firm on not passing a budget late in the session.

But Senate leaders said they had trouble getting the House to meet with them to haggle out the final budget.

On the normally scheduled “conference weekend” with a deadline to agree to a budget last Saturday, the House did not show, taking the weekend off. This angered Hosemann and the Senate. All the budget bills died, requiring a vote to extend the session, or the governor forcing them into a special session.

If the Legislature ends its regular session without adopting a budget, the only option to fund state agencies before their budgets expire on June 30 is for Gov. Tate Reeves to call lawmakers back into a special session later.

“There really isn’t any other option (than the governor calling a special session),” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said.

If Reeves calls a special session, he gets to set the Legislature’s agenda. A special session call gives an otherwise constitutionally weak Mississippi governor more power over the Legislature.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Amount of federal cuts to health agencies doubles

Published

12 hours ago

April 2, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-02 14:48:00

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
April 2, 2025

Cuts to public health and mental health funding in Mississippi have doubled – reaching approximately $238 million – since initial estimates last week, when cancellations to federal grants allocated for COVID-19 pandemic relief were first announced.

Slashed funding to the state’s health department will impact community health workers, planned improvements to the public health laboratory, the agency’s ability to provide COVID-19 vaccinations and preparedness efforts for emerging pathogens, like H5 bird flu.

The grant cancellations, which total $230 million, will not be catastrophic for the agency, State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney told members of the Mississippi House Democratic Caucus at the Capitol April 1.

But they will set back the agency, which is still working to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic decimated its workforce and exposed “serious deficiencies” in the agency’s data collection and management systems.

The cuts will have a more significant impact on the state’s economy and agency subgrantees, who carry out public health work on the ground with health department grants, he said.

“The agency is okay. But I’m very worried about all of our partners all over the state,” Edney told lawmakers.

The health department was forced to lay off 17 contract workers as a result of the grant cancellations, though Edney said he aims to rehire them under new contracts.

Other positions funded by health department grants are in jeopardy. Two community health workers at Back Bay Mission, a nonprofit that supports people living in poverty in Biloxi, were laid off as a result of the cuts, according to WLOX. It’s unclear how many more community health workers, who educate and help people access health care, have been impacted statewide.

The department was in the process of purchasing a comprehensive data management system before the cuts and has lost the ability to invest in the Mississippi Public Health Laboratory, he said. The laboratory performs environmental and clinical testing services that aid in the prevention and control of disease.

Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney addresses lawmakers during the Democratic caucus meeting at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. The discussion centered on potential federal healthcare funding cuts.

The agency has worked to reduce its dependence on federal funds, Edney said, which will help it weather the storm. Sixty-six percent of the department’s budget is federally funded.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled back $11.4 billion in funding to state health departments nationwide last week. The funding was originally allocated by Congress for testing and vaccination against the coronavirus as part of COVID-19 relief legislation, and to address health disparities in high-risk and underserved populations. An additional $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was also terminated.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the Department of Health and Human Services Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

HHS did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about the cuts in Mississippi.

Democratic attorneys general and governors in 23 states filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Tuesday, arguing that the sudden cancellation of the funding was unlawful and seeking injunctive relief to halt the cuts. Mississippi did not join the suit.

Mental health cuts

The Department of Mental Health received about $7.5 million in cuts to federal grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Phaedre Cole, president of the Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, speaks to lawmakers about federal healthcare funding cuts during the Democratic caucus meeting at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

Over half of the cuts were to community mental health centers, and supported alcohol and drug treatment services for people who can not afford treatment, housing services for parenting and pregnant women and their children, and prevention services.

The cuts could result in reduced beds at community mental health centers, Phaedre Cole, the director of Life Help and President of Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, told lawmakers April 1.

Community mental health centers in Mississippi are already struggling to keep their doors open. Four centers in the state have closed since 2012, and a third have an imminent to high risk of closure, Cole told legislators at a hearing last December.

“We are facing a financial crisis that threatens our ability to maintain our mission,” she said Dec. 5.

Cuts to the department will also impact diversion coordinators, who are charged with reducing recidivism of people with serious mental illness to the state’s mental health hospital, a program for first-episode psychosis, youth mental health court funding, school-aged mental health programs and suicide response programs.

The Department of Mental Health hopes to reallocate existing funding from alcohol tax revenue and federal block grant funding to discontinued programs.

The agency posted a list of all the services that have received funding cuts. The State Department of Health plans to post such a list, said spokesperson Greg Flynn.

Health leaders have expressed fear that there could be more funding cuts coming.

“My concern is that this is the beginning and not the end,” said Edney.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.