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Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson said he took attorney Brad Pigott off the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit in the welfare scandal because Pigott didn’t consult with the agency before filing a recent subpoena that named the former governor.

But a July 1 email obtained by Mississippi Today shows Pigott sent a draft copy of the subpoena to both the Attorney General’s Office and the welfare agency’s general counsel — 10 days before he filed it.

On July 11, Pigott filed a subpoena on the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for its communication with several key players in the case, including former Gov. Phil Bryant and retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre. He also subpoenaed Supertalk, a high-powered conservative talk radio network, for interviews with defendants in the suit.

The athletic department had received $5 million in welfare funds from the embattled nonprofit founder Nancy New to build a new volleyball stadium on behalf of Favre — the single largest known purchase in the scandal.

But the USM Athletic Foundation and Supertalk, both of which received welfare payments that auditors have questioned, were not named as defendants in the lawsuit.

“Please look over these DRAFT subpoenas to 2 non-parties, which you and I have talked about only generally,” Pigott wrote in the July 1 email to Assistant Attorney General Stephen Schelver, copying MDHS attorney Patrick Black. “Let me know if you have edits.”

On Friday, the week after Pigott filed the subpoenas and Mississippi Today first published them, MDHS abruptly removed him from the case.

READ MORE: State fires attorney probing former Gov. Phil Bryant in welfare scandal lawsuit

MDHS hired Pigott, a former U.S. attorney who filed civil litigation against 38 individuals or companies in early May, on a year-long contract that was set to expire July 30. The goal of the lawsuit is to recover misspent welfare funds — federal dollars that were intended to help Mississippi’s neediest residents. While Pigott’s client was MDHS, the attorney general’s office approved Pigott’s contract and is included as counsel on the lawsuit. 

Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Michelle Williams told Mississippi Today on Saturday that her office is not involved in decisions about who MDHS chooses to represent the agency.

However, the governor’s office, which directly oversees MDHS, was.

“While the Governor has not been closely involved, the Governor’s office has worked closely with DHS throughout our efforts to recover the fraudulent spending that occurred before the Reeves term began,” reads a statement Reeves’ office released Saturday. “That included discussions about the decision not to extend Brad Pigott’s contract. DHS has done a great job explaining the myriad reasons why a more professional, full-service law firm was required. Recovering the stolen TANF funds is a priority for DHS, and we always engage with our agencies on their priorities.”

Pigott said MDHS did not give him a reason he would not remain on the case but told him the decision was not indicative of the quality of his legal work. Pigott told Mississippi Today he believed his termination was politically motivated.

On Saturday, a day after Mississippi Today broke news of Pigott’s firing, MDHS released a statement saying Pigott had “made decisions about the litigation and filed pleadings without any prior dialogue with officials at MDHS.”

“Although USM Athletic Foundation is not yet a party in this case, Brad Pigott issued an extensive subpoena to that entity without any prior discussion of the matter with MDHS,” Anderson said in his statement. “Attorneys represent clients, and MDHS is the client in this case. I hope I don’t need to explain that an attorney needs to remain in close communication with his client at all times. Any review of complaints filed with the Mississippi Bar will reveal that communication— or lack thereof— is at the center of many of those complaints. When it becomes apparent that the client and the lawyer are not on the same page, the client has every right to find another attorney.”

Anderson’s statement appears to confirm Pigott’s suspicion that he was terminated because of his subpoena on the athletic foundation and his attempts to answer how $5 million in federal funds from an anti-poverty program were converted to build a volleyball stadium. This was a project Bryant was aware of, Mississippi Today previously reported.

“All I did, and I believe all that caused me to be terminated from representing the department or having anything to do with the litigation, was to try to get the truth about all of that,” Pigott told Mississippi Today hours after his firing Friday. “People are going to go to jail over this, at least the state should be willing to find out the truth of what happened.”

State Auditor Shad White, who initially investigated the welfare scheme, reacted to the news of Pigott’s termination on social media Saturday morning.

“Firing Pigott is a mistake,” White wrote. “From the beginning of this case, I said having a bipartisan team look at this case is important. That’s one of the many reasons I gave our findings to the DA of Hinds Co, who’s a Democrat. I’ve also, of course, given everything to the FBI. Pigott worked well with my office, communicating regularly with us about the status of the case and how we could share information. I hope Pigott’s firing doesn’t delay the recovery of the millions of misspent welfare money that we identified in our audits.”

The MDHS statement said the agency will retain new counsel and that this decision does not change its commitment to recouping misspent TANF funds.

“I am sure they can find a loyal Republican lawyer to do the work,” Pigott said Friday.

The post Welfare head says surprise subpoena led to attorney’s firing. Emails show it wasn’t a surprise. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., a recent graduate of University of Mississippi, has been charged with murder in the case of Jimmie “Jay” Lee, a 20-year-old Black student who was well-known in Oxford’s LGBTQ community.

The Oxford Police Department announced the arrest in a press release Friday night. OPD did not provide the date or time that Harrington was booked or a motive. A bond has not yet been set. Harrington’s charges are not yet posted to Lafayette County’s online court records database. 

OPD asked anyone with information to contact police, who are “still working to locate Lee’s body.” 

“This is still an ongoing investigation and updates will be given at a later date,” the press release states. 

Lee’s disappearance 14 days ago had spurred his friends and family to conduct search parties across Oxford and post flyers pleading for information. On Wednesday, his classmates in the UM Department of Social Work held a rally for Lee.

Many people describe Lee as an open, confident person who broke barriers for UM’s LGBTQ community and was drawn to social work because he wanted to help people. He had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work and was already accepted to pursue his master’s this fall. 

“This is a loving, caring person that would give you the shirt off his back if you need it,” Tayla Carey, Lee’s sister, told Mississippi Today last week. 

Lee was last seen at 5:58 a.m. on Friday, July 8, sitting in his car at Campus Walk Apartments, where he lived. The 20-year-old was reported missing to the University of Mississippi Police Department that evening after he did not show up to a donation drive for baby formula that he had organized as part of a summer internship. 

Three days later, police found Lee’s car in the impound lot of a local towing company, which had taken it from Molly Barr Trails, a student housing complex, that Friday afternoon. In its press release, the Oxford Police Department had stated it believed Lee was at Molly Barr Trails to visit someone. 

It’s not clear if Lee was visiting Harrington. 

Social media accounts belonging to Harrington show that he had just graduated from UM with a bachelor’s degree in real estate. His family is from Grenada, and his uncle is Carlos Moore, who was president of the National Bar Association last year. 

The 22-year-old appears to have been involved on campus, serving on the executive boards for several student organizations during the 2020-2021 school year. He is also the owner of T&T Moving, a student-run moving company. 

Harrington’s most recent Instagram post, on May 5, shows him standing in front of a construction site in a powder-blue suit, celebrating his recent graduation.

The post Oxford police charge recent Ole Miss grad with murder in Jay Lee case appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The state welfare department has fired Brad Pigott, the former U.S. attorney it contracted to claw back millions in misspent federal funds from dozens of people in Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal.

The termination comes about a week after Pigott filed a subpoena on the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for its communication with several notable people, including former Gov. Phil Bryant, to get to the bottom of why it received $5 million in welfare funds to build a volleyball stadium.

“All I did, and I believe all that caused me to be terminated from representing the department or having anything to do with the litigation, was to try to get the truth about all of that,” Pigott told Mississippi Today hours after his firing on Friday. “People are going to go to jail over this, at least the state should be willing to find out the truth of what happened.”

It is unclear how Pigott’s termination will affect the welfare agency’s civil lawsuit, which promised to probe players in the welfare scheme and answer questions that current criminal proceedings wouldn’t. Just last week, Pigott had scheduled depositions with key players in the scheme, including former NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

Pigott said he was not given a reason for his termination, but that Mississippi Department of Human Services officials told him it was not related to the quality of his legal work.

Officials at the Mississippi Department of Human Services and the Attorney General’s Office, which had to sign off on Pigott’s contract and is included on the civil lawsuit, did not return calls Friday. Pigott said both agencies were aware of his intent to subpoena the athletic foundation days before he filed.

Recent revelations about the welfare scandal, originally investigated by former Bryant campaign manager and Bryant appointee State Auditor Shad White, inspired former state and federal officials to question whether White’s close political ties to Bryant could have jeopardized an impartial investigation.

“I am sure they can find a loyal Republican lawyer to do the work,” said Pigott, a former President Bill Clinton appointee.

Pigott’s firing comes just days after he filed legal documents zoning in on high-profile players in the scheme — including Bryant and Favre — that have so far escaped legal scrutiny for their involvement.

Mississippi Today uncovered in April that Bryant began assisting Favre with a venture called Prevacus just days before the company received a commitment of $2 million in welfare funds. The money came from a nonprofit run by then-First Lady Deborah Bryant’s friend Nancy New, who was given authority to spend tens of millions of funds from MDHS. Texts showed the former governor was poised to accept shares in Prevacus after he left office, until the February 2020 arrests derailed the arrangement.

READ MORE: Phil Bryant had his sights on a payout as welfare funds flowed to Brett Favre

New, a defendant in the civil suit who also pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and fraud, also recently alleged for the first time publicly that Gov. Bryant directed her to make a $1.1 million welfare payment to Favre.

In early May, Pigott filed a civil suit against 38 people or companies in an attempt to recoup roughly $24 million in welfare money the state says they squandered. These funds were supposed to address poverty in the poorest state in the nation.

Pigott was blocked, however, from including in his initial complaint anything about the $5 million in welfare funds that went to build the USM volleyball stadium — a payment inspired by Favre.

“I was forbidden to do so by political operatives who regard themselves as higher up than the director of the MDHS,” he told Mississippi Today.

MDHS is an agency directly overseen by Gov. Tate Reeves’ office. Reeves appointed the current MDHS director tasked with cleaning up the scandal, Bob Anderson, who worked with Pigott in the local U.S. attorneys office in the 1990s and informed Pigott of his termination Friday.

Before Favre connected with New to fund Prevacus, the pharmaceutical start he was investing in, he had sought her help on the volleyball project.

“She has strong connections and gave me 5 million for Vball facility via grant money,” he texted Jake Vanlandingham, founder of Prevacus, in late 2018.

To justify the payments, New’s nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center disguised the $5 million agreement with the athletic foundation as a lease of the university’s athletic facilities, according to the indictment against Nancy New’s son Zach New. The nonprofit claimed it would use campus property to host events and programs for the area’s “underserved population,” a nod to the actual purpose of the grant funds it was using. In exchange, the athletic foundation would build the volleyball stadium, which it called a “wellness center,” and include offices in the building where the nonprofit could host anti-poverty programs. This never occurred.

READ MORE: ‘You stuck your neck out for me’: Brett Favre used fame and favors to pull welfare dollars

Auditor White questioned the $5 million payment in his explosive 2020 audit of the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Alfred Rankins, commissioner of the Institutions of Higher Learning, denied in a letter to White that the board had any involvement in this scheme, to which White responded, “Instead of quibbling, perhaps your time could be better spent providing the public with a plan for the Wellness Center to be used by the at-risk community in Hattiesburg and providing that to me in a letter. This way, the TANF money that was paid for the Center might be used to benefit the community it was intended to benefit.”

Pigott argues the lease agreement was intentionally deceitful.

“It’s obvious from published information that Brett Favre admitted in a text that that $5 million in Department of Human Services grant money was, in his mind, a gift to him, which he made clear was to absolve him of paying that money himself to his alma mater to build such a volleyball facility,” Pigott told Mississippi Today. “That was wrong and it was against the law and it cost the TANF program $5 million.”

“And it’s also obvious from public information,” he continued, “that the USM Athletic Foundation knew all of this and agreed to and signed a sham, fraudulent, so-called lease agreement with Nancy New’s entity pretending that the $5 million was to allow Nancy New’s entity to use the football stadium at USM, and the basketball arena at USM, and the baseball arena at USM, and the parking lots associated therewith, all of which was a lie, as the USM athletic foundation well knew.”

Bryant told Mississippi Today in April that he was aware of Favre’s USM volleyball vision.

“That volleyball thing kept coming up, and popping up, and then it’d go away,” he said. 

In the fall of 2019, after the auditor’s investigation had begun, Bryant hosted a meeting at his office with Favre, Nancy New and Bryant’s newly appointed welfare director Christopher Freeze. Favre had been complaining that he “owed” over $1 million on the volleyball stadium. Bryant said New asked in the meeting for more money for the building, which was under construction, and Bryant said he told her “no.”

Pigott subpoenaed communication between USM athletic foundation board members or employees and Phil Bryant, Deborah Bryant, Favre, Nancy New, her sons Zach New and Jess New, former welfare department director John Davis and retired wrestler Ted “Teddy” DiBiase Jr. 

“It is also obvious from published information that the number of lies that the USM Athletic Foundation told on a lease agreement is a larger number than perhaps anybody else told on paper in the course of this entire pathetic story of misuse of money intended not to go as gifts to famous celebrities or to athletic programs of universities but instead to go to the neediest families in the state,” Pigott said.

Pigott had also filed a notice of depositions that he scheduled between August and November for the following individuals: Zach New, Jess New, Nicholas Coughlin, Adam Such, Nancy New, Christi Webb, Paul LaCoste, Jacob VanLandingham, Brett Favre, Teddy DiBiase Jr., Brian Smith, Ted DiBiase Sr. and Heart of David Ministries, and Austin Smith. It’s unclear if the state will move forward with these hearings without Pigott.

The post State fires attorney probing former Gov. Phil Bryant in welfare scandal lawsuit appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Editor’s note: On July 30, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame inducts its Class of 2022. What follows is Part III of a series detailing the achievements of the eight inductees.

Former Ryder Cup hero and five-time PGA Tour winner Jim Gallagher Jr. — born in Pennsylvania, raised in Indiana, and a University of Tennessee graduate — will be inducted July 30 into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. 

It will be Gallagher’s seventh Hall of Fame, and probably his most cherished. That’s because, for Gallagher, Mississippi has become home.

Says Gallagher, “It’s like Steve Azar sings in the state song, I’ll bleed Mississippi ’til I’m dead and gone.”

Gallagher, 61, moved to Greenwood in 1989 with his new bride, Greenwood native Cissye Meeks-Gallagher.

“I’ve lived in Mississippi for more than half my life now, and I ain’t moving again,” Gallagher said. “When I drive across that state line or land here, I know I am home. To go into this Hall of Fame, with the Archie Mannings, Walter Paytons, Jerry Rices and Kent Hulls is special.”

Making it all the more special, in this Hall of Fame, he also joins Cissye, his wife, the 12-time Mississippi Women’s State Amateur champion, 2019 MSHOF inductee, and mother of their four children.

“Cissye went in first, as well she should have, but being in there with her is so cool,” Gallagher said. “I know I wouldn’t have had the success I have had without her. She was always there for me, always coaching me whether she knew it or not.”

Gallagher didn’t move to Mississippi until he was 29, but his roots have grown deep here. He won his first professional tournament at Hattiesburg in the old Magnolia Classic in 1985, beating the great Paul Azinger in a playoff. He played his last professional tournament in the Champions Tour tournament on the Gulf Coast in 2018, and he often plugs Mississippi and Mississippi players in his current duties as a TV commentator on The Golf Channel.

All of his big victories came as a Mississippi resident, including the 1993 Tour Championship, during which he shot a course record opening round of 63 and then out-dueled Greg Norman on Sunday to claim what was then the richest prize in golf history.

But surely Gallagher’s biggest claim to golf fame came a few weeks before that when he went head to head with Steve Ballesteros in one of the final matches of the Ryder Cup, trounced him and spurred the Americans to a narrow victory.

“No doubt, it was my most memorable victory of all,” Gallagher said. “That’s the one that people remember all these years (nearly 30) later. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have won The Tour Championship if not for what happened in the Ryder Cup.”

To understand the magnitude of Gallagher’s conquest of Ballesteros, one must first understand what Ballesteros meant to the Ryder Cup. The Spaniard was the golfer who spearheaded Europe’s recent dominance. Ballesteros, winner of five major championships and 95 tournaments worldwide, was a splendid golfer at any competition but at his best in the Ryder Cup’s pressure-packed match play format. It was as if Seve willed himself — and the Europeans — to victory. His Ryder Cup record 20-12-5 is one of the best of all-time. Gallagher was a Ryder Cup rookie.

“I don’t think anybody except maybe Cissye and me thought I had a chance to win that match,” Gallagher said. “But I was playing well, and I knew I could beat him. And I’ll tell you this: Seve knew it, too.”

Gallagher beat him all right, ending the match on the 16th hole, winning three up with two holes left to play.

It was the crowning achievement of what turned out to be a Hall of Fame career – now a seven Halls of Fame career.

•••

The 2022 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Induction Class includes Gallagher, football great Eric Moulds, world swimming champion Maggie Bowen-Hanna, basketball coach Kermit Davis, Sr., baseball standouts Barry Lyons and David Dellucci, and football coaches Bob Tyler and Willis Wright.

Part I: Maggie Bowen-Hanna.

Part II: Eric Moulds.

For MSHOF Induction Weekend event and ticket information, click here. 

The post Hall of Famer Jim Gallagher Jr. — born in Pennsylvania, raised in Indiana, at home in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Fewer pre-K and kindergarten students met the benchmark for reading readiness this year compared to 2019, a decline education officials attribute to the impact of the pandemic.  

Previous state tests have also demonstrated the impact of the pandemic on student achievement, but some, like the third-grade reading assessment, have stayed consistent with pre-pandemic levels. 

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment tests public pre-K and kindergarten students to measure early literacy skills. It is used as an instructional baseline for teachers, and students who meet their benchmark score have been shown to become proficient in reading by the end of third grade. 

Early learning collaboratives (ELC) are one form of public pre-K, made up of partnerships among school districts, Head Start agencies, childcare centers, and nonprofit groups. This spring, 65% of the 2,700 ELC students tested met the benchmark score, down from 77% in the spring of 2019. 

Other public pre-K programs also saw a decline since 2019, from 69% of students meeting the benchmark score to 61.5% this year.

Education department officials explained that pre-K students were less likely to have been in daycare, and therefore less likely to have had formal classroom experiences for the last two years. 

“(Pre-K students) had less exposure to other children, teachers, and adults due to isolation during these two years prior to entering that pre-K setting,” said Melissa Beck, K-3 assessment coordinator for the department. “Many of the adults they encountered wore masks, which hindered the ability to hear language clearly and see the mouth, which we know is a barrier to reading instruction. Less exposure to others speaking and listening causes delays in language development.” 

Students at the end of kindergarten also take the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment to track their progress over the year and to help teachers identify areas for additional instruction. Of the 34,000 public kindergarten students who were tested, 58% met their benchmark score. This number also dropped from 2019, when 66% of students met the benchmark. 

To address this drop, the state education department recommends that districts train all K-3 teachers in the science of reading, host parent workshops, and work to expand pre-K programs through state funds. Department officials said they would be expanding their monitoring of early learning collaboratives, providing additional professional development opportunities for teachers, and increasing the use of screener assessments to monitor student progress. 

“Despite the learning disruptions caused by COVID-19, Mississippi kindergarteners still showed significant growth during the 2021-22 school year thanks to the hard work and dedication of their teachers to accelerate learning,” said Dr. Kim Benton, interim state superintendent of education. “Teachers will be able to use these results to inform instruction in the early grades.”

The post Fewer pre-K and kindergarten students met reading targets, latest data show appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Hot As Here appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Officials at the Mississippi Department of Education “responded to misinformation” late Thursday night to clear up confusion about what the State Board of Education voted through in its meeting earlier in the day.

The State Board of Education did not, as was reported by several news outlets on Thursday, vote to allow guns to be carried on K-12 campuses. The board did, however, vote to update its outdated internal policy to conform to a 10-year-old state law.

The State Board of Education passed a policy in 1990 that prohibited weapons on campus (except in the possession of law enforcement officials) and required local school districts to have a policy regarding weapons on campus. But in 2012, when state lawmakers passed an enhanced carry law that allowed enhanced permit holders to carry weapons on school campuses, the education department never updated its policy.

The board’s vote on Thursday simply squared the department’s internal policy with state law for the first time.

“State board policies can’t prohibit something that is authorized in law — even though we do have this policy on the books, the statute would supersede our policy,” Erin Meyer, the education department’s general counsel, said at the Thursday meeting. 

In its Thursday vote, the board maintained the requirement for local school districts to have a policy on weapons. The department also recommended, during the Thursday meeting and in the clarifying press release, that school districts consult with their local board attorneys. 

Before being finalized, the policy will move through the department’s public comment process. As of Thursday night, the page to submit comments had not opened yet. Public comments that are received will be presented at the September board meeting. 

During the meeting, Meyer referenced an attorney general’s opinion from 2013, which clarifies that possessing a gun on school property is a felony according to Mississippi law unless one possesses an enhanced concealed carry permit. 

To possess an enhanced concealed carry license, a person must complete a weapons training course approved by the Board of Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training and undergo a background check, according to the statute. 

The opinion elaborates that people with enhanced concealed carry permits are allowed in the “public areas of a school,” but specifies that “school districts may bar persons, including persons with enhanced carry permits, from areas of the school to which the general public is not allowed.” 

Micah Hill, the board’s senior student representative, asked if this would allow teachers with enhanced carry permits to have weapons on campus. Meyer responded that school districts would be able to make their own rules regarding weapons on campus. 

It is clarified in the attorney general’s opinion that school districts are permitted to make employment policies prohibiting carrying weapons on campus, regardless of enhanced carry status. 

Brian McGairty, director of the office of safe and orderly schools, also discussed the newly-formed Mississippi School Safety Alliance during this portion of the meeting. The group, consisting of parent groups, law enforcement, youth court judges, mental health advocates, and educators, will be offering recommendations regarding these changes to the State Board of Education as a part of the public comment process. 

One potential recommendation that was brought up during the meeting was an additional course for individuals’ enhanced concealed carry permits to be recognized by the school district. They also discussed requiring school districts to report their weapons policies to the Department of Education. 

The post Guns have been allowed in Mississippi schools (for some people) since 2012 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Continuing the conversation from last week, the Clevelands welcome old friend Tim Floyd to the pod to talk about all the issues facing college sports. Turns out, there are so many issues the one podcast turned into two. Floyd is outspoken on where college sports is headed with NIL and transfer issues. To be succinct, he doesn’t like where it’s headed and is glad he is retired.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: A two-parter with retired NBA and college basketball coach Tim Floyd, a Hattiesburg native and long-time friend of the Cleveland family (part 2) appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Even though a record number of Americans are watching U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson lead the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, his Mississippi congressional colleagues do not appear to be interested in his efforts.

None of Mississippi’s other five members of Congress — Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Reps. Trent Kelly, Michael Guest and Steven Palazzo — responded to questions from Mississippi Today asking for their thoughts on the often bombshell testimony that has come out of the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

The bipartisan committee was formed to investigate the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol by President Trump’s supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Thompson, Mississippi’s sole Democrat in Washington, was tapped by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to chair the special committee.

The testimony is slated to continue tonight in primetime. One of the focuses of tonight’s hearing will be the 187 minutes that expired between when Trump urged his supporters during a Jan. 6 speech in Washington to march to the Capitol “to fight like hell” and when he finally asked his supporters who were ransacking the Capitol to go home. The hearings also come as it was announced that there will be a criminal investigation into missing U.S. Secret Service texts related to Jan. 6.

READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson tells the world what happened on Jan. 6, 2021

While the congressional delegation did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today, Rep. Trent Kelly of the 1st Congressional District recently said of the hearings on the SuperTalk radio network: “Very little. I try not to. It infuriates me to watch. It is a joke. It is a stage show. It is almost like a TV trial show. They are showing one side of the evidence…

“This is just a witch hunt,” Kelly continued. “They are just trying to make sure President Trump doesn’t run again in 2024. This whole Jan. 6 thing is a sham as far as I am concerned. We have already had the investigation. It was bad that day.”

Though their staffs wouldn’t acknowledge Mississippi Today’s questions, both Sens. Wicker and Hyde-Smith brushed off questions about the Jan. 6 committee when asked by congressional reporter Matt Laslo in Washington in recent weeks.

Wicker, when asked if he was watching the hearings, told Laslo: “I’m headed to this classified briefing. I have seven minutes, so let’s have a conversation later on about this.”

When Laslo caught up with Wicker less than an hour later, Wicker responded: “I’m actually not doing interviews today.”

When Laslo asked Hyde-Smith if she was watching the committee hearings, she repeated a typical refrain of hers at the Capitol: “I don’t do the hallway interviews.” Since she was elected in 2018 and again in 2020, Hyde-Smith has rarely participated in interviews of any nature.

READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson, leading the public Jan. 6 hearings, has long worked to protect democracy

All five members of Mississippi’s U.S. congressional delegation other than Thompson are Republicans. Wicker was the only member of the state’s Republican congressional delegation not to cast votes on Jan. 6 challenging the election outcome. And all other than Guest opposed a plan to establish a bipartisan commission led by non-politicians to investigate the events of Jan. 6 and of efforts by Trump and his supporters to throw out votes and overturn the election.

When Senate Republicans, including Mississippi’s Wicker and Hyde-Smith, blocked efforts to establish a Jan. 6 commission, House Democrats formed the special committee comprised of House members. Thompson, the state’s only African American member of the Mississippi delegation, heads the special committee as chair. The vice chair of the committee is Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming.

Thompson is expected to miss tonight’s hearing because he recently was diagnosed with COVID-19.

None of Mississippi’s five Republican members responded to questions about recent bipartisan efforts to put safeguards in place to make it more difficult for those attempting to throw out election results.

The post Rep. Bennie Thompson’s Mississippi colleagues have no comment on his Jan. 6 hearings appeared first on Mississippi Today.

OXFORD — Kara Gallagher, a social work student at University of Mississippi, learned her classmate Jimmie “Jay” Lee was missing in the afternoon on Sunday, July 10, from a Facebook post. Campus police had posted a short description of Lee and the last time he was seen along with a picture of the 20-year-old Black student in a graduation cap, his arms flung wide as glitter floats in front of his smiling face. 

It was baffling. But as social workers, Gallagher and her classmates knew they couldn’t sit by without supporting Lee or his family. In Zoom class and in group chats, they organized a GoFundMe for Lee’s family, but they wanted to do more. So they decided to host a rally to create a space for people to gather in Oxford.  

“Jay would do the same for any of us,” Gallagher said. 

The university initially said no but relented after Gallagher and her classmates got professors involved. On Wednesday night, the rally drew about 150 people to the Circle, a historic district at the heart of UM’s campus, to blow bubbles and hold colorful signs as a way “to illuminate Jay’s way home.”

One sign, a reference to Lee’s dog, read: “Come home Jay, Lexi needs to be fed. <3″

Lee was last seen on Friday, July 8, at 5:58 a.m., sitting in his car at Campus Walk Apartments, his home. He was wearing a silver robe, a gold bonnet, and gray slippers.

From there, police think Lee may have driven to Molly Barr Trails, a student housing complex in northeast Oxford, to visit someone. His car was found three days later in the impound lot of a local towing company that had taken it from Molly Barr Trails on Friday afternoon. 

READ MORE: FBI, Attorney General now assisting in search for missing Ole Miss student Jay Lee

Lee’s friends and classmates say it’s unsettling for someone so involved on campus and in Oxford to go missing – and for there to be so little information about where he could’ve gone. Police have not released any major updates in the 13 days since Lee disappeared except to brief the public on the investigation. 

“When Jay walked in a room, you knew it,” Gallagher said. “For me personally, it’s difficult to wrestle with someone so big going missing. It’s like, how does that happen?” 

Lee is also well-known in Oxford’s LGBTQ community – his disappearance has rattled them, too. Many queer people in Mississippi, in response to routine violence or harassment, conceal their identities, but Lee was known for his openness. Last fall, he ran for homecoming king and posed in a dress for his campaign photos. Earlier this year, he had spoken at a conference about his experience as a gay man who wears long hair, nails and eyelashes, and how his gender identity is often misunderstood.

“He was wildly free,” said Blake Summers, a co-founder of Code Pink, a local drag night that Lee had performed in for years.

An hour before the rally was set to start, TV news crews were already at the Circle setting up cameras, pointing them at a wooden podium that had been set in front of the flagpole. The university, expecting a large crowd, had cordoned off the street. 

Gallagher and other students and faculty in the social work department got there early to set up a table and place electronic candles in a ring around the flagpole. They fielded questions on behalf of Lee’s family members, who did not want to talk to reporters. 

One of the students designated to talk to the media was Precious Thompson. Like Lee, she was finishing her bachelor’s degree this summer. The oldest student in the social work program, Thompson didn’t hang out with Lee outside of class, but she described him as a charitable person. She said Lee would purchase textbooks for students who couldn’t afford it. He would give away clothes.

“He just loved people,” she said. 

Four police officers stood by an oak tree as students passed out hand-lettered stickers that said “Hope for Jay.” One person came up to Jay’s dad to give him a framed portrait, drawn in graphite, of Lee in his graduation cap. 

Shortly after 7 p.m., Gallagher took the microphone at the podium. She asked the crowd to come in a little closer as camera shutters started to click. 

“Get buddy-buddy with the reporters,” she said. “We want to pull everybody in so they can see and hear.” 

One of Lee’s classmates gave a prayer. The next speaker, Jennifer Buford, a social work instructor who helped students plan the event, talked about the importance of hope to the community. She referred to Romans 12:12, which says, “be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” 

“Hope can sometimes be confused with wishful thinking,” Buford said. “However, the hope that we intend to inspire today is based on the belief and the confident expectations that Jay will soon be home. Because these are our expectations, we will not accept gloom, doom, hopelessness and despair.”  

Buford continued. She said she wanted Lee’s family to know that he is a “huge presence” in every community he was a part of – the social work department, the university, Oxford – and that he is missed. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Lee, we are inspired by the level of faith and the hope that you have demonstrated,” she said. “Today, we want you to know, you are not alone.” 

Lee’s classmates had planned to distribute candles, but they decided that might make the rally seem like a vigil. Instead, they asked the gatherers to blow on bubble wands. His classmates played Lee’s favorite songs, “7 Rings” by Ariana Grande and “Run the World (Girls)” by Beyoncé, blanketing the sound of cicadas. Bubbles filled the air. 

Lee’s parents placed the graphite drawing at the table in front of the crowd. 

When the music finished, Charlotte Fant Pegues, the vice chancellor for student affairs, read a speech on behalf of Jay’s parents. The speech thanked local police, the mayor of Oxford, and everyone in the community who has shown the family support, and included an anecdote about Lee. 

“Just yesterday my husband and I had to go through some Amazon packages that Jay had previously ordered,” Pegues read. “We were overwhelmed in seeing how he was ordering baby items out of his own pocket to give out to children in need. That’s the kind of guy he is.” 

Lee was interning at the Mississippi Department of Child Protective Services in Lafayette County. He was supposed to organize a donation drive for baby formula the night of Friday, July 8. His parents realized Lee was missing when he didn’t show up. 

At the end of the rally, Gallagher gave a closing statement. She told everyone how much their presence meant to all of Lee’s family, friends and classmates. Then she leaned forward on the podium, her voice firm with intent. 

“I want to emphasize, we will find Jay,” Gallagher said. 

“Say it with me,” she said, and the crowd replied: “We will find Jay.”

“That’s right, we’re gonna find him,” she repeated. “He will be safe and return to his parents.”

The post ‘We will find Jay’: Oxford community rallies for missing Ole Miss student appeared first on Mississippi Today.