The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday revived a defamation lawsuit that former Gov. Phil Bryant filed against Mississippi Today.
All seven current state Supreme Court justices ruled that Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills incorrectly dismissed Bryant’s lawsuit against the newsroom in April 2025, and ordered the judge to hear more legal arguments.
In an opinion written by Justice Josiah Coleman, the justices determined that a “trial is the forum to resolve factual inconsistencies and the weight accorded conflicting facts and allegations,” instead of a judge dismissing the complaint.
Attorneys for the news outlet told the justices at oral arguments in February that a jury is not necessarily needed in a defamation case because a judge could dismiss the suit if the judge believes Bryant’s complaint contained legal deficiencies.
But the state’s highest court on Thursday disagreed.
Billy Quin, an attorney for Bryant, told Mississippi Today in a statement that the court’s unanimous decision confirms that “the rule of law still means something” in Mississippi.
“This case will not be tried in Mississippi Today’s friendly echo chamber of like-minded liberals, nor will it be tried on the New York Times editorial page,” Quin said. “It will be tried before a jury in Madison County. See you in court. This should be fun.”
Lee Crain, an attorney for Mississippi Today, said in a statement that the newsroom is disappointed with the Supreme Court’s ruling, which focused on procedures in the trial court and did not decide the validity of Bryant’s defamation claims one way or the other.
“The Mississippi Today Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage at the heart of this case is the very best of American journalism, and we look forward to vindicating that reporting once the case returns to the trial court,” Crain said.
Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe spent years researching and writing about a sprawling welfare scandal — something that investigators have called the largest public embezzlement scheme in the state’s recent history. Auditors have questioned roughly $100 million in welfare spending under the leadership of John Davis, who served under Bryant as the head of the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
Wolfe’s series of stories, The Backchannel, examined how federal welfare dollars meant to help the state’s poorest residents were misspent or misdirected to projects involving powerful figures, including former NFL star Brett Favre and associates of then-Gov. Bryant, a Republican who held the state’s highest office from January 2012 to January 2020.
Shortly after Wolfe won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage, Bryant filed a lawsuit in Madison County Circuit Court against the newsroom and its CEO, Mary Margaret White.
Bryant’s lawsuit didn’t challenge the accuracy of Wolfe’s reporting because he didn’t file the lawsuit within the statutory timeframe needed to file such a claim.
Instead, Bryant’s lawyers have argued that the news outlet, its CEO and other employees made defamatory comments about the former governor when discussing the series in public settings, including during a radio interview and during a speech at a journalism conference.
Bryant has emphasized in his lawsuit that he has not been charged by state or federal authorities with any crime related to the welfare scandal, and he argued that Mississippi Today’s public comments went beyond protected journalistic reporting.
Seven people have pleaded guilty to federal and state crimes in connection with the scandal, and a jury found Ted DiBiase Jr., a former pro wrestler-turned-entrepreneur, not guilty in federal court last month on 13 charges related to the scandal.
It’s unclear when the lower court judge will conduct a hearing for more legal arguments.
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