Report: Brett Favre Questioned by FBI in Mississippi Welfare Fraud Scandal

NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre was questioned by the FBI as a part of their investigation into a welfare fraud scandal in Mississippi, according to a report.

The state of Mississippi paid Favre $1.1 million to deliver speeches. The money was drawn from federal welfare funds. However, the famed Packers signal-caller never gave the speeches and was ordered by Mississippi’s state auditor to repay the money with interest.

While Favre did repay the $1.1 million he was paid for the speeches, he has not yet paid back the $228,000 in interest.

Bud Holmes, Favre’s attorney, informed NBC News that the FBI had questioned Favre. Holmes denied any wrongdoing on his client’s part and specifically denied that Favre knew the money he was paid came from federal funds provided to help needy families.

According to the New York Post:

Favre also lobbied for a multi-million dollar grant for a drug company in which he was the biggest shareholder, and $5 million for a new volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter was on the team and the elder Favre played football in college.

Text messages surfaced during the scandal that showed Favre asking an official from the drug company Prevacus, saying, ‘Don’t know if legal or not but we need cut him in.’ The text message allegedly referred to former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, and Favre sent a follow-up text saying ‘Also if legal I’ll give some of my shares to the Governor.’

Bryant has denied accepting a quid pro quo in the matter.

‘As I have said before, I would never accept money for no-show appearances, as the state of Mississippi auditor, @ShadWhite, claims,’ Favre tweeted in 2021. ‘I am doing all that I can to support this investigation to make things right for the people of Mississippi and I have shared all that I know, which is that I was paid for three years of commercials that I did, and I paid taxes on the money, as I should.’

The federal fund from which the money came was called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The money paid to Favre came out of a larger sum of $70 million. Other recipients of cash from the fund included a horse farm, a volleyball complex, and a pro wrestler.

A defendant in the case has alleged that the money paid to Favre was allocated at the direction of former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant. However, Bryant has denied knowing that the money came from federal welfare funds.

Brad Pigott, a state attorney in charge of recovering the misappropriated funds from the TANF program, was fired by the state welfare agency after issuing a subpoena seeking more information about Bryant and Favre’s involvement in the program, Fox News reports. Current Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) says Pigott was fired because he had a political agenda.

“The notion of tens of millions of dollars that was intended by the country to go to the alleviation of poverty — and to see it going toward very different purposes — was appalling to many of us,” Pigott told NBC News. “Mr. Favre was a very great quarterback, but having been a great NFL quarterback, he is not well acquainted with poverty.

“All of it remains quite a mystery,” Pigott continued, “as to why Mr. Favre would get the benefit of millions of dollars in TANF welfare money, both for a fee for speeches he didn’t make, $2 million-plus to go to a company in which he was the largest outside individual investor and $5 million for his alma mater to play volleyball in a volleyball building.”

Brett Favre has not been charged with a crime in this case.