If Shad White and Lynn Fitch are both invited to any upcoming Republican Party banquets, they made it clear again last week that it will be best to seat them at different tables.
White, the state auditor, recently released his annual Audit Exceptions Report. He also used it to tweak Fitch, the attorney general, for what he believes is a blatant unwillingness to go to court to enforce certain Audit Department payment demands.
Writing that legislators have asked him if Fitch “is enforcing our demands in court,” White said: “Since May 2024, my office has transmitted more than 25 cases to the Attorney General requesting standard legal guidance on whether the Attorney General will enforce demands in those cases. The value of those demands, collectively, would be over $4.5 million.
“The Attorney General is constitutionally and legally obligated to provide this legal guidance to us. To date, the Attorney General has only provided legal guidance on one of those cases, a case in Indianola.”
Further, White wrote, during his seven years in office, the Audit Department has sent repayment demands in 83 cases to the attorney general’s office for litigation, but “No action has been taken by the Attorney General on 74 of the 83 cases.”
Those are stingers, especially if Fitch, like White, is seriously considering running for governor in 2027. But the attorney general’s chief of staff responded in kind a day later.
“This is exactly what we have come to expect from the auditor,” Fitch’s chief of staff Michelle Williams told the Magnolia Tribune website.
She said the attorney general’s office is handling 28 “active parallel criminal cases.” The office also has 41 cases with restitution orders that are being paid, and 29 referrals in civil litigation. Another 16 cases have been paid in full and another 23 are only owed payments for investigative fees or interest.
It’s an understatement to say that White’s math and Fitch’s math is nowhere close to adding up. It doesn’t even sound like they’re talking about the same set of cases, but it’s time for them, or their staffs, to get on the same page.
Yes, there is bad blood between the two. White mocked Fitch with a snide nickname in his book about the welfare scandal. That prompted Fitch to recuse her office from representing White in a lawsuit filed against him by Brett Favre, saying the contents of the book created a conflict of interest and the book was outside the scope of White’s official duties.
But we’re talking about recovering money from people who ripped off taxpayers. It should be easy for Fitch’s office to get a list of the cases for which White claims nothing has been done, and see who’s right. If both are looking at the governor’s race in 2027, that provides a great incentive to fix this problem. So do it.
