By Frank Corder, Magnolia Tribune
Mississippi Today CEO Mary Margaret White, Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau, and reporter Anna Wolfe (left) and former Governor Phil Bryant (right)
Appearing at a Knight Foundation event in February 2023, Mississippi Today CEO Mary Margaret White described a breakthrough in her outlet’s reporting on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) scandal, saying, “It was not until 2022 when a source that Anna [Wolfe] had worked for years leaked a trove of private communications, text messages, that really revealed the extent of the misspending.”
During that same presentation, White made comments that Mississippi Today uncovered how a former governor had “embezzled” $77 million in TANF funds that set off accusations of defamation and ultimately a lawsuit.
For years, politicos in Jackson and beyond have guessed at who Wolfe’s source(s) might have been for the reporting that eventually won her and her employer a Pulitzer Prize. If subpoenas issued by Phil Bryant in his defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today are any indication, the former governor believes one of those sources to be Darra Woolman.
The subpoena explicitly alleges that Woolman was a paralegal at Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, during a period in which the firm was representing former Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis, with an understanding that Woolman leaked confidential file materials to Mississippi Today and Wolfe, and that Woolman was eventually fired for this conduct.
Law firms owe their clients a duty not to disclose information communicated or shared by their clients. This information is protected by the “attorney-client privilege” and extends to all employees of a firm who come into contact with that information by virtue of that privilege.
In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a journalist’s First Amendment protection extended to information passively received from a source that illegally obtained or shared the information, even if the reporter knew the information was illegally obtained or shared by the source. In that case, the Court emphasized that a journalist that republished the content of an illegal wire intercept “played no part in the illegal interception.”
Where the Lawsuit Stands
The Mississippi Supreme Court revived former Governor Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today in April, sending the case back to the Madison County Circuit Court for further proceedings. A Madison County judge had dismissed the case in 2025, finding that Bryant had not plausibly alleged actual malice under the standard set in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Bryant then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Since the state Supreme Court ruling, the two sides have engaged in the discovery process as Bryant seeks information on where Mississippi Today obtained its information the outlet’s executives and staffers used to characterize Bryant’s role in the state’s welfare scandal.
Bryant and his wife sued Deep South Today, the parent company of Mississippi Today, along with its CEO Mary Margaret White, former Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau, and reporter Anna Wolfe in 2023 alleging defamation following statements made in writing and verbally that seem to accuse the former governor of embezzlement. The outlet’s reporting and statements from its leadership framed Bryant’s role in the TANF scandal as steering $77 million in government funds to family and friends.
Bryant asserts the statements were false, that they were made knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth, and that the defendants – Mississippi Today – were apprised of their falsehood and refused to make adequate corrections.
The former governor has not been accused of or charged with any crime related to the welfare scandal. He has been noted as the whistleblower who pointed State Auditor Shad White to the possibility of embezzlement and fraud at the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
Two other subpoenas were sent by Bryant attorney Billy Quinn to Carol Burnett and Stephanie Ganucheau, the mother of then-Mississippi Today Editor-in-Chief Adam Ganucheau and the attorney assigned by the Attorney General’s Office to IHL at the time the agency approved a volleyball stadium project at the University of Southern Mississippi that is central to the TANF scandal allegations.
Darra Woolman
According to the subpoena, Darra Woolman of Madison was employed by Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, when its attorneys represented former Mississippi Department of Human Services Executive Director John Davis.
“The plaintiffs [Bryant] 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,” the subpoena of Woolman states. “This subpoena relates to your production of these confidential file materials to Mississippi Today and Wolfe.”
Woolman has been ordered to produce “communications, documents and things, and electronically stored information that you had access to because of your employment with Coxwell & Associates, PLLC, and that you provided to Mississippi Today and/or Anna Wolfe” at a deposition on August 10.
Woolman has gone on to form Department of Collaborators LLC.
If Woolman did indeed leak confidential file materials while employed with Coxwell & Associates to Wolfe, and whether Wolfe, Ganucheau, White or others at Mississippi Today knew of the stolen and released privileged materials remains to be seen.
Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett received a subpoena related to comments which appeared in Wolfe’s reporting about what a governor would likely know about MDHS’ activity and references to those comments by Sports Illustrated.
Burnett, a United Methodist minister, had previously served at MDHS under the Musgrove administration in the early 2000s. She is now the founder and executive director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative and executive director of the non-profit Moore Community House.
The subpoena alludes to a potential connection between Burnett and Michael Rosenberg at Sports Illustrated. Burnett has been ordered to produce documents and communications between her, Rosenberg, Sports Illustrated “and/or any other person affiliated with Sports Illustrated, including, but not limited to, attorneys, paralegals, or other persons affiliated with an attorney or law firm that represents Sports Illustrated.” In addition, Burnett is to produce the same as it relates to Mississippi Today, Wolfe, and Ganucheau.
In July of 2019, Wolfe reported, “Burnett said while state leaders have tried to give the impression that the department of human services operates independently of the governor’s office, ‘that is not the case.’ ‘(The department of human services) works as an arm of the governor’s office,’ Burnett said. ‘That’s part of the political context that makes the governor’s opinion (of the program) so critical.’”
Wolfe also referenced Burnett in an April 2022 article, quoting here as saying, “I’ve been saying all along that all of those TANF subgrants that are suspect – Nancy New, all of them – it was the governor who was the wizard behind the curtain,” said Carol Burnett, founder of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Institute. “That’s my opinion.” The Wolfe article continued, “Burnett’s opinion is an educated one; she was a division director in the Mississippi Department of Human Services in the early 2000s and has direct knowledge about how the agency operates. ‘The thing about TANF and the governor in Mississippi is: it’s a huge pot of money and the governor has total control over it,’ Burnett said. ‘The governor just had to have been involved in those decisions.’”
Then in May 2023, Rosenberg published an article for Sports Illustrated where he wrote, “Bryant’s lawyers would later say he had ‘no knowledge of or involvement in’ the meeting or the $4 million commitment. But Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative founder Carol Burnett, who worked in MDHS in the early 2000s, tells SI, ‘The head of DHS doesn’t make those decisions without the governor’s knowledge and approval. That is just unfathomable to me.’”
Burnett’s deposition was set for August 3. Burnett’s attorney attempted to quash the subpoena.
Stephanie Ganucheau
Documents obtained and first reported by this reporter in 2022 showed that former Assistant Attorney General Stephanie Ganucheau, while working for former Attorney General Jim Hood as the legal counsel for the Board of Trustees at the State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), recommended IHL approve the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) volleyball facility that used Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) grant money on two separate occasions in both June and October of 2017 – a full two years before the welfare scandal was made public.
The Attorney General’s staff served as the legal counsel at various Mississippi state agencies, including IHL.
Ganucheau, the attorney that vetted the structure of the lease and the use of those funds by the IHL institution, in this case the University of Southern Mississippi, blessed it, not once, but twice in memos to IHL staff.
Stephanie Ganucheau is the mother of former Mississippi Today Editor-In-Chief Adam Ganucheau.
Bryant’s legal team has now subpoenaed the former Assistant Attorney General for all communications with Mississippi Today related to the USM volleyball facility as well as with her son, Wolfe, and Mississippi Today in her former job. Bryant also wants Ganucheau to produce all communications and documentation regarding Mississippi Today’s “deliberate editorial decision to not name” her or explain that she had recommended that the IHL Board approve the Amended and Restated Lease between USM and the USM Athletic Foundation.
Ganucheau’s deposition was set for August 4.
Mississippi Today Subpoenas
On July 22, Mississippi Today and Deep South Today attorneys Henry Laird, Lee Crain, and Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. notified the Madison County court of their intent to subpoena Brett Favre along with former MDHS head Davis and Nancy New, who ran a non-profit that received TANF funds.
Both Davis and New have pleaded guilty while Favre has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Favre has been sued by MDHS in a civil suit.
Favre has also sued State Auditor Shad White for defamation over comments made regarding the TANF scandal. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied Auditor White’s request to dismiss the personal defamation lawsuit filed against him in May 2025.