{"id":159920,"date":"2026-02-28T14:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=159920"},"modified":"2026-02-28T14:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T14:10:25","slug":"phil-bryants-defamation-lawsuit-over-welfare-scandal-reporting-could-be-revived-justices-signal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=159920","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Phil Bryant\u2019s Defamation Lawsuit Over Welfare Scandal Reporting Could Be Revived, Justices Signal&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mississippifreepress.org\/phil-bryants-defamation-lawsuit-over-welfare-scandal-reporting-could-be-revived-justices-signal\/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQErgNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEez7NBpzGUQGtd5PD3pFWZdxVHjLOUDuFt4eu70vAOPF2Q9heUKA5J3E1yVso_aem_qq22zbe_0ElqBJclvC3rPA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MS Free Press<\/a>: &#8220;Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today over its welfare scandal coverage could be revived after several Mississippi Supreme Court justices questioned a lower court\u2019s dismissal and suggested a jury should consider the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Bryant has accused the nonprofit publication and members of its staff of defaming him including, he alleges, by saying he \u201csteered\u201d millions in welfare funds to sports celebrities and other illegal uses. He also sued its former CEO for saying he \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mississippifreepress.org\/phil-bryant-threatens-defamation-suit-against-mississippi-today-over-embezzlement-claim\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">embezzled<\/a>\u201d welfare funds while speaking at a journalism forum in 2023. Neither state nor federal prosecutors have accused Bryant of a crime in the welfare case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Lee Crain, an attorney from Gibson, Dunn &amp; Crutcher LLP, who is representing Mississippi Today, argued at the Mississippi Supreme Court on Wednesday that Bryant admitted in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mississippitoday.org\/2022\/04\/04\/phil-bryant-brett-favre-prevacus-welfare-scandal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2022 interview with Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cit doesn\u2019t look good.\u201d He was referring to some of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bryanttexts.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">text messages<\/a>\u00a0she had obtained between him and key figures in the welfare scandal.<br><br>\u201cI think the governor has conceded away anything that could establish falsity, anything that could establish actual malice. There\u2019s no reason to even get out of the gate,\u201d the attorney said.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MS Free Press: &#8220;Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant\u2019s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today over its welfare scandal coverage could be revived after several Mississippi Supreme Court justices questioned a lower court\u2019s dismissal and suggested a jury should consider the case. Bryant has accused the nonprofit publication and members of its staff of defaming him including,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159921,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159920\/revisions\/159921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}