Thread by @ayewolfe

The latest texts released by Nancy New and now today by former Gov. Bryant come within a court battle about whether Bryant should have to produce all texts related to the USM-Favre volleyball project. Bryant wants to keep them private #TheBackchannel mississippitoday.org/2022/09/24/phi…

Bryant has released select text messages in an attempt to show that he had no idea Favre was using welfare money for the volleyball project in 2017. He suggests his appointed welfare director immediately committed $4m to the project without his knowledge.

Some of the most brow-raising new texts:

Bryant in 2019 after meeting with the new welfare director, Favre and New about volleyball funding:

“We are going to get there. This was a great meeting. But we have to follow the law. I am to old for Federal Prison. 😄😎”

Bryant and his attorney a few days after the meeting:

Attorney: “She’s relentless.”
Bryant: “Nancy is worrying. She know[s] what they were doing was wrong.”

Brett Favre when asking Bryant in 2018 for help finding funding to construct lockers at the facility:

“[It would be helpful] [i]f someone would build them on [their] spare time. Poncho mentioned the prison industry possibly as a builder.”

(According to Bryant’s court filing, HGTV star and woodworker Ben Napier assisted with constructing the lockers on Bryant’s request).

Favre in July of 2019, after the volleyball project had received $5m in welfare funds and Favre received $1.1m himself:

USM president when Bryant approached him in early 2020 about Favre’s persistent badgering:

Also, Bryant’s claim that he instructed Christopher Freeze, the MDHS director he hired to replace John Davis, to cut welfare funding to Nancy New is significant, considering what State Auditor Shad White said after Davis’ guilty plea hearing Thursday:

This proposal is also incredible. They proposed naming the USM volleyball center “The Dewey Phillip Bryant Center for Excellence.” It was supposed to be a “surprise” for the governor, but in an appeal to get the funds before he left office, they told him the plan #TheBackchannel

Question: why would a TANF subgrant proposal go to the governor’s office in the first place? What does this show about their role in dismantling the official RFP/bid process? The accountability measure hadn’t been followed since 2012, Bryant’s first year in office.

CLARIFICATION: The public court filing says Ben Napier “assisted with locker construction … at Gov. Bryant’s request” which, of course, there’s nothing wrong with. In a now deleted Tweet, his wife Erin Napier says Ben simply gave the gov a recommendation for a cabinet maker