Trent Lott: The Doo Doo Is Getting Deeper (I hope you drown in it)

B’Man: I have written about this crook for quite some time (here, here, here and here) and have an obvious opinion about him. ThinkProgress has a post up in which recent testimony shows he has been intimidating witnesses with his Senatorial position (not that this is uncommon, just that here is another example of Mississippians being proved how they have been duped for so long).

Lawyer: Lott ‘Initiated Contact With People Surrounding’ Insurance Fraud Lawsuit

During a deposition last week, Jim Robie, an attorney for State Farm Insurance, alleged that former Mississippi senator Trent Lott had “urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” Questioning Lott’s nephew, Zach Scruggs, Robie asked if it had been his “custom” to have Lott “contact and encourage witnesses to give false information.” Scruggs refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment.

In an interview with LegalNewsline, Robie said Lott had “initiated contact with people surrounding” the case involving alleged efforts to “defraud” State Farm:

“Clearly, the record couldn’t be more plain that Sen. Lott and his associates were talking to people that were key advisers to Mr. Scruggs, paid consultants and those who were creating an illusion that simply doesn’t have any basic fact,” Robie told Legal Newsline on Thursday. […]

Robie said Lott, a leading Republican, initiated contact with people surrounding this case, something unprecedented for a U.S. Senator.

“Have you ever had a U.S. Senator call you?” he asked rhetorically.

A spokesman for Lott’s lobbying firm told Legal Newsline that “the former senator had no interest in justifying the implication with a response.”

Lott has previously been reported to have used his position in the Senate to put pressure on State Farm. In May, the New Yorker reported:

Charles Chamness, the C.E.O. of a national insurance trade association, has claimed that Lott had threatened him, in a telephone call, with “bringing down State Farm and the industry.” Lott also co-sponsored a proposal to strip the insurance industry of an antitrust exemption that had been in place since the nineteen-forties.

Robie says “he will continue his efforts to depose both Richard and Zach Scruggs, during which he will probe the influence of Lott.”

B’Man: Fellow Mississippi Rednecks, do you believe that Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, Haley Barbour or any of the other corrupt Mississippi reTHUGlicans are any better than this scumbag?

Trent Lott: Mississippi Scumbag

Matt at ThinkProgress posted this morning regarding the ex-Mississippi Snetor Trent Lott. Anyone who reads here knows that I tagged that lying piece of shit long before he left the Senate for the corrupt ashole he is. This just helps to bolster that case.

Lott accused of encouraging witnesses to give false information

Former Mississippi senator Trent Lott, who left Congress last year to become a lobbyist, is alleged to have “urged witnesses to give false information in a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit.” In a sworn deposition last week, an attorney for State Farm Fire & Casualty Cos. asked Lott’s nephew, Zach Scruggs, who had represented the former senator after his house was destroyed by Katrina, if it had been his “custom and habit in prosecuting litigation to have Senator Lott contact and encourage witnesses to give false information?” “I invoke my Fifth Amendment rights in response to that question,” replied Scruggs.

Hell, Scruggs, just do what Karl Rove does, ignore everything and refuse to answer.

I hope that the piece of shit, Lott, goes down like he should have many years ago. Couldn’t happen to a more bogus sumbitch.

Trent Leaves a Lott to be Desired

As a Mississippian for the vast majority of my life and having known what an elitist crook this cheerleading dickhead has always been, is it any wonder that he has made THIS kind of money in the first quarter of this year (since starting his new crooked business)?

From RollCall (h/t ThinkProgress):

Breaux-Lott’s Fat 1st Quarter

By Tory Newmyer
Roll Call Staff
April 23, 2008

Less than four months after he left office, former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has already scored a major payday downtown. The firm he founded with former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) earned at least $945,000 during its first quarter in business, according to House filings.

Lott: Nothing was done to justify that

Lott says he’s a witness, not target, in federal investigation

By ANITA LEE 

Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott told the Sun Herald on Monday that federal investigators have assured him he is not a target of a judicial bribery investigation involving his brother-in-law, prominent Mississippi attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs.

Lott said FBI agents did interview him earlier this year, but only as a potential witness.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Scruggs tried to land a lifetime appointment to the federal bench for Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter. Scruggs recommended to Lott that he appoint DeLaughter as a U.S. District Court judge, according to an attorney who has pleaded guilty in the case. In exchange, New Albany attorney Joey Langston said, DeLaughter was expected to rule in Scruggs’ favor in a Hinds County lawsuit filed against him by another attorney over legal fees.

“I may be called as a witness,” Lott said, “but I’ve been assured that I’m not under investigation, and rightly so because nothing was done to justify that.”

Whew… I thought they had something on me for a minute.

Read it all at the SunHerald.

Trent Lott: Mississippi’s Pride and Joy

I hope you rednecks are proud of your criminal ex-Senator:

U.S. Investigates Whether Lott Had Role in Mississippi Judge Case
Federal Inquiry Examines
Former Senator’s Links
To a Scruggs Suit Ruling

By PAULO PRADA and ASHBY JONES

Federal agents are investigating whether former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott knowingly played a role in an alleged conspiracy in 2006 to influence a Mississippi judge presiding over a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against famed plaintiff attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, according to people familiar with the situation.

Mr. Scruggs and several associates are scheduled to stand trial March 31 on charges that they offered $40,000 in bribes to State Court Judge Henry L. Lackey in return for a favorable ruling in a lawsuit against Mr. Scruggs over $26.5 million in legal fees.

Mr. Lott, who is a brother-in-law to Mr. Scruggs, unexpectedly announced his resignation from the Senate two days before Mr. Scruggs was indicted last November. Since then, Mr. Lott has been interviewed by federal agents at least once, according to a person familiar with the case.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Oxford, Miss., which is leading the investigation, is also examining whether several associates of Mr. Scruggs induced a different Mississippi jurist, Hinds County Judge Robert Delaughter, to rule in favor of Mr. Scruggs in a separate lawsuit by promising that Mr. Lott would recommend Judge Delaughter for a seat on the federal bench.

The two lawsuits were about whether Mr. Scruggs owed former legal associates tens of millions of dollars in disputes over legal fees.

In return for the ruling Mr. Scruggs was seeking, Judge Delaughter was told in early 2006 that Mr. Scruggs could arrange for him to be considered for an appointment as a federal district-court judge, according to a transcript of a plea hearing on Jan. 7 at which an associate of Mr. Scruggs pleaded guilty.

Aides to Mr. Lott said in November that the Republican senator’s resignation had nothing to do with the Scruggs indictment. Mr. Lott, who now works in Washington at a lobbying firm he recently founded with former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux, has declined to comment since then on the judicial investigation. Mr. Scruggs and Judge Delaughter also have declined to comment.

Deborah Madden, a spokeswoman for the Jackson, Miss., office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, declined to comment on the specifics of the probe or confirm the identity of any people it may investigate.

Several people familiar with the situation say that associates of Mr. Scruggs told investigators that Mr. Scruggs relayed Judge Delaughter’s interest in the federal judgeship to then-Sen. Lott. In early 2006, Mr. Lott called the judge and discussed his interest in the federal bench, those people say. Seven months later, in August 2006, Judge Delaughter delivered a ruling widely considered favorable to Mr. Scruggs.

A month after that, President Bush nominated a Gulfport, Miss., lawyer named Halil “Sul” Ozerden to the vacant seat on the federal bench Mr. Delaughter had allegedly been interested in. People familiar with the process said Mr. Lott and Mississippi’s other U.S. senator, Thad Cochran, approved of the appointment. The full Senate confirmed Mr. Ozerden in April 2007.

A person familiar with Mr. Lott’s activities at the time confirmed he called Judge Delaughter, but said the call wasn’t made specifically at the behest of Mr. Scruggs. Mr. Lott routinely called “dozens of people” across Mississippi as a matter of Senate business, the person said.

The Mississippi judicial bribery investigation began last year when Judge Lackey told federal investigators that he had been offered a bribe by an attorney speaking on behalf of Mr. Scruggs. The FBI equipped the judge’s chamber with surveillance equipment, and over several months recorded Timothy Balducci, the attorney who offered the bribe, paying it to the judge in cash installments.

Federal agents confronted Mr. Balducci with the evidence last November and he began secretly cooperating with investigators to collect evidence against Mr. Scruggs. Mr. Balducci and Steven A. Patterson, a partner in Mr. Balducci’s firm, later pleaded guilty in connection with the Lackey case.

Admissions by those two men, according to people familiar with the investigation, led to a guilty plea by Joseph C. Langston, another associate of Mr. Scruggs’, on charges that he took part in the alleged attempt to influence Judge Delaughter.

Mr. Langston admitted at the January plea hearing that he and Mr. Patterson paid $50,000 in cash in December 2005 to Ed Peters, a lawyer and close friend of Mr. Delaughter’s. In return, Mr. Peters was to act as a conduit for out-of-court communications between the Scruggs legal team and Judge Delaughter, according to testimony by Thomas Dawson, a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Oxford.

Shortly thereafter, according to court testimony, Messrs. Scruggs and Langston learned that Mr. Delaughter was interested in becoming a federal judge. “Based on this knowledge,” the prosecutor said, “Scruggs told Langston to let the judge know that if he ruled in his favor he would pass his name along for consideration regarding the federal judgeship.” Mr. Peters didn’t return calls seeking comment.

At a hearing on motions related to Mr. Scruggs’s trial yesterday, Mr. Balducci testified that Mr. Scruggs tried to use Sen. Lott to influence Mr. Delaughter.

Mr. Scruggs rose to prominence in the 1990s after winning a $206 billion settlement from the tobacco industry on behalf of 46 states.

The case before Judge Delaughter was one of two longstanding lawsuits against Mr. Scruggs by former partners with whom he had pursued the asbestos industry on behalf of plaintiffs beginning in the mid-1980s. In the first case, Mr. Scruggs was ordered to pay a former law partner about $17 million in unpaid fees, interest, and damages. In the second, an outside expert approved by Mr. Delaughter had recommended the court rule that Mr. Scruggs owed a former legal associate $15 million.

In his August 2006 ruling, Mr. Delaughter said the partner was due only unpaid legal fees totaling $1.5 million, not the full $15 million.

Corrupt Mississippi Politician Becomes Media Whore?

Just when you wished the stinking racist bastard would just go away into lobbyist oblivion, this comes out.

Lott Looks to the Future

Trent Lott may be out of the Senate, but he may not stay out of the political arena. He may go to work as a network political consultant. Lott says he’s being courted by CNN and FOX to do political analysis.He was back in his hometown of Pascagoula Wednesday accepting thank you’s for his years of service. It was a packed house at the Rotary Club meeting. He told his many friends and supporters, he does not regret retiring, and he would like to see more bi-partisanship on Capitol Hill.

When Opinions Make You Hurl

OPINION

Well-deserved honor for Lott

Jackson County turns out today to honor favorite son Sen. Trent Lott.

Lott, who resigned in December, honored his hometown with a distinguished 35-year career at the highest levels of the nation’s government. He served as Republican Whip in the House and Senate. He served as Senate Majority Leader from 1996 to 2002. He was Senate Republican Whip in 2007 when he resigned.

Lott was first elected to the House in 1972. He had served as Rep. William Colmer’s administrative assistant from 1968 to 1972. Colmer, a Democrat from Moss Point, backed Lott in his first bid for election to the House. From 1981 to 1986 Lott served as House Republican Whip. He began his Senate career in 1989.

Lott is known for his loyalty to the Republican Party and Mississippi. But, he was also a lawmaker that others, Democrats and Republicans, relied on to cut through the partisan divide and make government work.

In his book, “Herding Cats,” Lott points to his upbringing in Pascagoula as shaping his success.

“There weren’t a lot of rich people in Pascagoula, but there wasn’t much poverty either. What impressed me as a youngster was the almost classless society I encountered when I enrolled in Pascagoula Junior High School as a seventh-grader,” Lott wrote.

As to his reputation as a deal-maker, “I had a hunger to get things done and an early can-do way to get them done — whether it was organizing the senior prom or guiding the Drama Club,” Lott wrote.

An indication of his future bipartisanship: “… I believe that my campaigns succeeded because I enthusiastically and sincerely developed friendships throughout the student body,” Lott wrote about his leadership role in school here.

The honors begin at noon at a meeting of all Jackson County Rotary clubs. At 3 p.m., a private party will be held hosted by the Republican Women of Jackson County.

At 6 p.m. the Jackson County and Ocean Springs chambers of commerce hold the Trent Lott Appreciation Day at the B.E. “Mac” McGinty Civic Center. About 1,500 tickets at $10 each were sold for the civic center event.

Today’s honors may not be as fancy as receptions held in Washington, D.C., but it is very likely Lott is among more friends here.

BuelahMan’s OPINION:

I personally think that Trent Lott is a lying, racist, Big Money clown who misled the people of Mississippi during the last election (as he did most of his career). He knew darn well he would be leaving and never said a word. He is simply a ReTHUGlican ideologue who cares only about himself and the perpetuation of a failed and devastating neocon policy.

Good riddance and I hope your new venture fails miserably.

Mississippi Politics = Redneck Scumbaggery

Ah, don’t be offended. Most politicians are scumbags. Many are rednecks (hell, I have been called a redneck many times).

But in the case of Trent Lott (R Scumator Ms), the audacity is amazing. Remember last November when he announced that he was going to retire from the Senate. With a Senate Ethics Committee’s rule of registration when negotiating with a future employer, he was asked if he had done so. He explained that he hadn’t because he hadn’t made any formal plans.

LOTT: Well, I have not yet, but I’m not really involved in negotiation. I’ve tried to stay away from that. There are some opportunities out there that I want to be able to consider, but I have nothing that we’ve agreed to or lined up.

But damn, if fortune (and prophecy of Biblical proportion) didn’t miraculously smile on Trent because just this month he and former La Senator John Breaux announced that they were going to form a new lobbying group called “The Breaux Lott Leadership Group”. (God does work in mysterious ways, huh?)

But here lies the problems with calculated lies… you should not be as stupid as Lott to even attempt it. At the very least, rehearse and make sure your partner and you have the same story as you told to begin with.

On Hardball, Lott was interviewed with Breaux and said that ”It just seemed like it was time” to “leave the Senate” to form the ”bipartisan firm” with Breaux.

LOTT: Plus, John and I’d talk about the idea of getting together and forming a bipartisan firm, for years we kind of joked about it, and then it just seemed like it was time for us to see if we could do this. I think there’s going to be a big demand frankly, for someone who can talk to both sides of the aisle.

Here is the truth of the matter… Lott broke the Senate rules (as IF this ever made any difference to anyone in this country before???). He lied, lies and will continue to lie about this. Why?

Money, of course. The new rules would have kept him from lobbying for 2 years, so after his run and win for Senate in Mississippi (never having mentioned that he was considering this), he immediately lies to his constituents (and the rest of America) and does what he knows the rules will disallow. How do we know he lied? Because 6 weeks BEFORE Lott announced his retirement, his son, Chet, registered the domain name “breauxlott.com”.

The prophetic foresight of Trent’s son is “Jesus miracle” worthy…

OR

He played you people in Mississippi, just like he always has.

I hope you are proud of your very own lying, racist, Tort-reforming scumbag.