Thursday, August 20, 2026

Back Door for the Back Channel?

 756 phone calls. 158 hours.  Breach of a suppression order.  Such describes the communications between disgraced paralegal Darra Woolman and Mississippi Today's star reporter, Anna Wolfe.  The phone logs arose in the latest showdown between former Governor Phil Bryant and the digital newspaper in Madison County Circuit Court last week.  


Wolfe stunned Mississippi when she published the text messages of Bryant, Brett Favre, and Jake VanLandingham and published them in 2022. The revelations were the foundations for Mississippi Today's The Back Channel series.  

The former Governor was not happy and sued Mississippi Today, Editor Adam Ganacheau, Publisher Mary White, and reporter Anna Wolfe for defamation on July 26, 2023 for Wolfe's reporting and comments made in podcasts, online, and in public forums.  Earlier post with thorough coverage of lawsuit.

Madison County Circuit Court Judge Brad Mills threw out the lawsuit after the defendants filed a motion to dismiss.  However, the Mississippi Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit in April.  A rejuvenated Phil Bryant became much more aggressive in discovery.  




Bryant subpoenaed Darra Woolman.   The subpoena spells out why the former First Man of Mississippi is so interested in the former paralegal: 

You were employed by Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, when its attorneys represented former Mississippi Department of Human Services (“MDHS”) Executive Director John Davis. The plaintiffs understand that you leaked confidential file materials to Mississippi Today and Anna Wolfe while you were employed with Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, and that your leak of these confidential file materials resulted in Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, terminating your employment. This subpoena relates to your production of these confidential file materials to Mississippi Today and Wolfe.

Since Coxwell fired Woolman and reported the incident to the Mississippi Bar, Bryant probably wants to determine if Woolman violated attorney-client privilege to give the intrepid reporter the scoop.   A phone log summary reveals how much Woolman communicated with the reporter. 


Bryant also subpoenaed Carol Burnett for deposition and her communications with Sports Illustrated and its reporters.  Burnett filed a motion to quash the subpoena. A hearing will be held on September  10. 

For its part, Mississippi Today’s lawyers are fighting all discovery tooth and nail filing an array of documents trying to quash the subpoenas. But with the State Supreme Court having already ruled on that, we are likely to see this play out.

Kingfish note: A second part to this story will be posted tomorrow.   The weeds in this court fight are pretty thick so more will be covered next week as well.  Needless to say, the defendants did not get their emergency motion to quash approved last week. 


37 comments:

Anonymous said...

None of this makes Phil look any better. Not sure what he’s trying to accomplish other than a pay day he doesn’t deserve.

Anonymous said...

this paralegal must be a real head case.

Anonymous said...

One thing he's doing: Proving how expensive it can be for a whistleblower!

Anonymous said...

Hmm. I wonder if Bryant will subpoena Kingfish for the email addresses of posters who criticize him in this blog space?
RMQ

Anonymous said...

The confident mizz wolfe isn't so confident any more. Hate that she isn't sleeping soundly these days. The clock is ticking .......

Anonymous said...

I'm no Phil fan, but if Anna broke the law...I support anyone that fights her.
Fair is fair.

Anonymous said...

None of this court wrangling is making PB look innocent.

Anonymous said...

This must be a very expensive effort. There is no way Phil can ever distance himself from the TANF disaster, as he appears to be the puppet master. It would be great if both parties could have a massive financial loss on this squabble.

Anonymous said...

Good ole investigative reporting. If MT didn't break into something or direct something to be broken into seems like fair game.

Freedom of the press is under attack by the far right using weaponized prosecutions and coopted courts. Likely when the far left gets control it will be the reverse.

Anonymous said...

"Mississippi Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit in April...."

Anybody have any idea why they would do this? Or is the MS Supreme Court just another example of how connected and corrupted the state actually is?

Anonymous said...

All politicians do this type of thing. PB was just too stupid not to get caught.

Anonymous said...

Yes, 12:48. It is because the lower court's decision to dismiss was arbitrary, sudden, and without any logic or explanation. The lack of any findings, reasoning, or really explanation of any kinds makes that lower court decision look, well, hard to explain by legal and rational means.

Anonymous said...

What is Phil's funding source for all this litigation? That would be of a lot interest to me.

Anonymous said...

Glad to know MT is forking out big time bucks for its attorney fees-

Anonymous said...

Several things can be true at the same time. Phil is still a POS for his involvement in the TANF scandal. Also, the Darr and Wolfe are POS's as well for leaking and publishing atty client privileged information. I hope he bleeds each of them dry, gets into Coxwell's E&O policy, but I also hope he goes to prison for his actions. Can we just arrest them all and put them in the same prison pod and see how it plays out.

Anonymous said...

You could start with reading the opinion in that case.

Anonymous said...

So lemme get this straight: PB is doing everything he can to embarrass those who exposed him. Doesn't change the fact that MY exposed him and his fat cat corrupt cronies. In fact, he's keeping it in the news. This isn't about those on the left or right. This is about those in power and how they abuse that power. None of us want the press to stop investigating those in power. Things like leaks and off the record information can be key to exposing corruption. That's corruption by Dems or the GOP. Why are so many folks here against these kind of investigations? Just because they are Republicans? What if it was the Dems in charge stealing from the poor? And the Magnolia Tribune took them down. I think we all know how the majority of the reactions here would go. Trust me, you do not want to live in a country where the press is stopped from afflicting the powerful. No matter how hard Trump and PB want that to happen.

Anonymous said...

@ 124, Sean Tindall is one of many clients held by BSS Global.

The strategy here is to show who was willing to do what (and why) to make Phil look bad (worse) than themselves.

KF will let us know more next week. Stay patient.

Anonymous said...

Bill Minor loved to afflict the powerful, and would smile when I did it. I miss him.

Anonymous said...

Although Feel has one helluva hairdresser, he ain't never been accused of being real damned smart.

Of course he was the puppet-master in this entire ring of thieves (and innocent participants). You can't be real smart while claiming innocence and concurrently doing your damnedest to prove your involvement.

Anonymous said...

Even Carlos The Clown would advise Phil to drop this thing. He is going to permanently embarrass and implicate himself. Carlos was overhead saying, "If y'all think I'm a dumbass, just wait til they get Phil on the stand".

Anonymous said...

It matters not who looks worse than Bryant, or not. It's about whether he is guilty, or not.

Anonymous said...

Bryant being too stupid to know he was guilty (or pretending to not be) is not going to absolve guilt, if it exists.

Anonymous said...

When someone waxes nostalgic about the good ole days of Bill Minor, they've truly jumped the shark. A pox on Minor's house. He was net bad for Mississippi and for the media in general.

Anonymous said...

Just out of interest, KF, have you ever been leaked privileged documents? What is the proper way to handle situations like these?

Anonymous said...

@12:04 I'm no Anna Wolfe or Adam what's his name fan, but if Phil is guilty, he needs to pay for the crime with time.

Kingfish said...

Privileged as in things that violate attorney client privileges? N0

Anonymous said...

Punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go!

Anonymous said...

The reliable sock puppetry on this one.

Anonymous said...

Which documents are subject to the attorney-client privilege? And who was the client?

Anonymous said...

That's horseshit. Feel was a Public Figure and has very little protection against Freedom of Speech/Press First Amendment rights granted by GOD. The judge dismissed it out of hand - but yes, could have said the reason.

Anonymous said...

Disgraced paralegal leaked REAL text messages. Enough said. Who does this state defend? Phil Bryant, Brett Favre and the DiBiase boys. Who loses and no one cares? The poor people of Mississippi. They were used as an excuse to get the federal funds (TANF) but instead the funds were used to enhance these Mississippi men who think they are better than the rest of the state. Welcome to white boy Mississippi politics. Tomorrow we can dig into lumumba and his handlers. Same kinda stuff just different race.

Kingfish said...

Which Bill Minor? The crusading reporter from the 60s and 70s or the bitter old man of the 90s and 2000s?

Anonymous said...

I hate Phil Bryant more after reading this.

Anonymous said...

70s and The Capital Reporter

Anonymous said...

"Bryant also subpoenaed Carol Burnett"-Tim Conway knows more about this and would be funnier

Anonymous said...

The money would have never been lost if it had never been reported.

Damn the free press? Not damn the corruption of course.


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