By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will crisscross a number of swing states on Wednesday, passing one another in Wisconsin, the place the previous president is scheduled to seem in Inexperienced Bay with a onetime native icon, retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre.
A longtime supporter of Trump and different Republicans, Favre spent most of his profession with the Inexperienced Bay Packers, successful the NFL’s Most Beneficial Participant award 3 times and a Tremendous Bowl. However the Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer has been within the information recently for a welfare scandal in his house state of Mississippi.
Favre, 55, just isn’t dealing with any legal prices, however he’s amongst greater than three dozen individuals or teams being sued because the state tries to get better misspent cash. Favre has repaid simply over $1 million he obtained in talking charges funded by the Short-term Help for Needy Households Program. Mississippi Auditor Shad White, a Republican, has mentioned Favre by no means confirmed up for the talking engagements. White additionally mentioned Favre still owes almost $730,000 in curiosity.
Favre has posted and reposted social media messages supporting Trump and criticizing Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
“In all of the elections I’ve seen over my lifetime, I’ve by no means seen one the place there was a lot hate,” Favre posted Monday on X. “It’s definitely unhappy to see.”
With six days till Election Day, Harris will journey from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Wisconsin’s capital, Madison, after which again south to Raleigh, North Carolina. Trump might be transferring in the other way, heading to Inexperienced Bay after an occasion in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
The concentrate on Wisconsin isn’t any shock. The Badger State is a perennial presidential battleground, usually determined by just a few thousand votes. Trump gained it in 2016 by 23,000 votes and misplaced it in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden by 20,000 votes.
In counting on Favre, Trump is tapping into the state’s deep and dependable help for the Packers and the group’s onetime star quarterback. However Favre additionally comes with elevated baggage after turning into enmeshed in Mississippi’s welfare spending scandal.
Mississippi has ranked among the many poorest states for many years, however solely a fraction of its federal welfare money has been going to households. As a substitute, the Mississippi Division of Human Companies allowed well-connected individuals to waste tens of thousands and thousands of welfare {dollars} from 2016 to 2019, in line with White and state and federal prosecutors.
A nonprofit group referred to as the Mississippi Group Schooling Middle made two funds of welfare cash to Favre Enterprises, the athlete’s enterprise: $500,000 in December 2017 and $600,000 in June 2018. The TANF cash was to go towards a volleyball arena on the College of Southern Mississippi. Favre agreed to steer fundraising efforts for the ability at his alma mater, the place his daughter began enjoying on the volleyball group in 2017.
The Mississippi Group Schooling Middle director, Nancy New, pleaded responsible in April 2022 to prices of misspending welfare money, as did her son Zachary New, who helped run the nonprofit. They await sentencing and have agreed to testify in opposition to others.
Favre appeared in September earlier than a Republican-led congressional committee that was analyzing how states are falling quick on utilizing welfare to assist households in want. U.S. House Republicans have mentioned a Mississippi welfare misspending scandal involving Favre and others factors to the necessity for “critical reform” within the TANF program.
Favre informed the congressional committee that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in January.
Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.
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