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A new investigative report by Sports Illustrated claims Brett Favre is ‘a central actor’ in the ongoing Mississippi welfare fund misappropriation scandal.
Earlier this month, former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant released a video throwing his alleged co-conspirators in the scandal under the bus after he was forced to release all of his text messages to Brett Favre and others.
In the video, Bryant claimed he is nothing more than a “whistleblower” who reported “wrongdoing of others.”
Text messages between Favre and Bryant revealed that the Hall of Fame quarterback even sought the help of then President Donald Trump in getting new concussion drugs, which were reportedly tested on dogs and children, funded and approved. They never made it to market.
This week, after repeatedly claiming he has done nothing wrong, Brett Favre’s request to the Mississippi Supreme Court to remove him as a defendant in a civil lawsuit was denied.
Which, if the Sports Illustrated report proves to be true, is probably an appropriate response.
Favre has portrayed himself as an unknowing and tangential participant in the welfare-embezzlement scheme. But it appears nobody benefited more. Interviews and an analysis of legal filings and records, which include dozens of text conversations — some of which have not previously been public — paint Favre as a ringleader from start to finish.
Favre had promised his alma mater, Southern Miss, that he would build a volleyball facility for his daughter Breleigh’s team there. But he was obsessed with not paying for it himself. So he got Mississippi’s welfare agency to build indoor and beach volleyball facilities for him—using money intended for the poorest people in the nation’s poorest state — and then he kept pushing to get more for a business venture, with the governor often helping him, according to texts from those involved.
“Brett Favre’s repeated demands for this grant money were certainly the driving force” for millions of dollars in illegal transactions, says former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, who had been hired by current Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves to independently investigate the scandal — until Pigott started looking at the volleyball deal and Reeves fired him.
In March, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White claimed to have “never-reported” text messages that show Favre knew he was receiving misappropriated welfare funds from the state of Mississippi. Those texts and the texts revealed by Sports Illustrated this week show just what a convoluted scheme it was.
“At times, the former quarterback comes off as comically clueless,” Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg writes. “Often, he seems highly manipulative. Throughout, he was relentless in his pursuit of government money.”
Numerous text messages revealed by Sports Illustrated in their report back that claim up. Favre, who was paid over $141 million by the Packers, Jets and Vikings during his NFL career, repeatedly was shown to be asking, sometimes pressing strongly, for millions in government funds to support his various projects.
At one point, Bryant contacted Southern Miss president Rodney Bennett, telling him, “Brett keeps asking to help him fund the Volleyball Facility.”
“I’ve asked Brett to not do the things he’s doing to seek funding from state agencies and the legislature for the volleyball facility,” Bennett replied. “As you know, [institutions of higher learning have] a process of how we request and get approval for projects and what he’s doing is outside those guidelines. I will see for the ‘umpteenth time’ if we can get him to stand down. The bottom line is he personally guaranteed the project, and on his word and handshake we proceeded. It’s time for him to pay up – it really is just that simple.”
Read all of the texts and Sports Illustrated’s entire report on the scandal here.