When the US Attorney’s Office, the FBI, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, the Harrison County District Attorney and banking regulators combine to look at attorney campaign contributions and loans made to judges from the local to the highest state courts, you have the makings of an intriguing John Grisham novel. Except this story is not fiction; the investigation really exists. The news blowing in from the Coast could be the largest political hurricane to hit Mississippi since Operation Pretense two decades ago.
Currently the matter is under investigation and the allegations are just that, unproven matters of suspect. However, a federal grand jury is expected to convene on the matter soon. Investigators are looking into allegations that prominent trial lawyers have repaid loans taken out by judicial candidates for their campaigns, and that they may have looked for favors in return. Federal bribery and state campaign finance laws may have been broken, as well as federal bank regulations.
The cast of characters appearing in published reports of the investigation reads like a who’s who in Mississippi politics. You have Richard Scruggs, the prominent trial attorney who made millions in asbestos lawsuits before teaming up with Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore to take on the tobacco industry, where he earned $1 billion in fees. You have Paul Minor, a fellow prominent attorney (even by national standards) who only earned $70 million for his firm in the tobacco lawsuits, but has taken on companies like Ford, Firestone, major insurance companies and HMOs around the country.
Both make significant contributions to judicial candidates and other elected officials. In his last three campaign finance reports showing contributions from and since the 1999 gubernatorial race, Governor Ronnie Musgrove shows gifts of over $105,000 from Scruggs and over $175,000 from Minor. On the Coast, some court officials refer to Minor as “the judge maker.”
Next comes Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, appointed by Musgrove, and winning a full term in 2000 after raising and spending then a record amount for a Mississippi judicial race. A young and rising political star from the Coast, Diaz served in the legislature as a Republican but moves in circles with prominent Democrats and trial lawyers.
Other names associated with the investigation include former Harrison County Circuit Court Judge John Whitfield and Harrison County Chancery Court Judge Wes Teel. Teel was acquitted in June of pocketing $3,700 in state funds used to reimburse vendors for goods and services for his office. A source familiar with the investigation suggests that as many as two-dozen more judges could be under the federal microscope, as well as Governor Musgrove. Investigators are scrutinizing Musgrove’s campaign contributions, which appear to spike from attorneys before some of his judicial appointments including those of Judge Jim Brantley to the Court of Appeals, Chancery Judge Carter Bise of Gulfport, and Supreme Court Judges James Graves and George Carlson.
Allegedly, Paul Minor has bragged that he has helped to pick all the judicial appointments since Musgrove has been Governor. Combine that with the huge campaign contributions flowing from Minor and friends to Musgrove, and the feds become suspicious. Interestingly enough, if any judges in the course of this investigation chose to resign, or for one matter or another were to be removed, Governor Musgrove would appoint the replacement. But such might have to occur before mid-January 2003, at which time there could be a different governor, perhaps even a Republican governor, who would pick very different replacements.
Now here is where the Grisham novel would get really interesting. Scruggs and Minor are being investigated by, among others, the Attorney General’s office. Mike Moore, the attorney general, hired Scruggs and Minor to assist in the take down of the tobacco industry. Both are campaign supporters of Moore. Both are friends of Moore. Scruggs and Moore are hometown friends and Ole Miss classmates. They’re also movie stars, of a sort. You may have seen Scruggs and Moore in the movie “The Insider” starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.
Many of the scenes were shot at Scruggs’ home. Colm Feore played Scruggs; Moore played himself; Scruggs played an extra. Scruggs and Minor are also being investigated by the US Attorney’s office. This is a federal office under the Republican Bush Administration.
Though typically a Democrat, Scruggs gave $250,000 to Republicans and the Bush Campaign and only $20,000 to Democrats during the 2000 Election. Meanwhile his brother-in-law, US Senator (once and future Majority Leader) Trent Lott, has reportedly been looking in the Bush Administration for an appointment for Scruggs. Rumors last year suggested an ambassadorship.
How about this for an ending to the Grisham novel: Half a state’s judiciary goes down along with a governor controlled by campaign contributors and a senator exerting influence in a federal investigation; meanwhile, millionaire attorneys go to jail. The state gets its first female governor as the lieutenant governor assumes the higher office, where she fills the bench with her own appointments, fills her former position of lieutenant governor, and picks a new senator that could potentially control the balance of power in the United States Senate. Hold on now, this last paragraph is fiction. But with politics in Mississippi, you can see where Grisham gets his ideas.
Brian Perry is a columnist for the Madison County Journal and editor of MagnoliaReport.com.
