The recent indictment of Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Jackson Councilman Aaron Banks raises many questions.
First of all, it is disturbing that Owens continues as the DA, responsible for prosecuting drug dealers, while this indictment is hanging over his head. Owens is innocent until found guilty, but this evidence presented in the indictment seems overwhelming.
Presumably, Owens will negotiate a plea bargain. Let’s hope this occurs sooner rather than later, hopefully before the end of the year. If Owens clings to power, this could anger the feds and hurt his pleas for leniency. Owens should comprehend this and resign, but his past actions don’t indicate an inclination toward rational behavior.
The same is true of Lumumba and Banks. They need to resign ASAP as did Angelique Lee. How can they continue to lead the city properly with this indictment hanging over their heads? Their insistence in staying in office is yet another sign of stupidity combined with arrogance.
Close observers have to wonder if the Richard’s Disposal contract will come into play. For years, Lumumba pushed Richard’s, a New Orleans company with a spotty garbage collection effort. New Orleans is not exactly known as a bastion of clean government.
Lumumba’s relentless pushing of Richard’s, despite the objection of the city council, made many wonder if there were other motivations involved.
It got so bad that Lumumba was willing to let Jacksonians go for weeks without garbage service in order to get his favored contractor installed, despite the contractor not being the lowest bidder. And this is after Lumumba lost a unanimous state supreme court decision. Something stank.
Despite the bad appearances, Lumumba prevailed because Banks inexplicably changed his vote. This is the same Banks who is being indicted alongside Lumumba and Owens for accepting money in exchange for supporting a hotel developer (who was actually an undercover FBI agent.)
It doesn’t take much to believe the feds will cut a deal with Banks in exchange for any information on the Richard’s deal. This is pure speculation but where there’s smoke there is fire.
The suspicious Richard’s deal probably caught the fed’s attention, which makes Lumumba’s unsuspicious attitude towards the fed’s ploy a real head scratcher. How could Lumumba not know he was on their radar screen?
Then there’s the issue of Congressman Bennie Thompson, whose district encompasses most of Jackson. Scuttlebut is that Thompson didn’t appreciate Lumumba driving Thompson’s city into the ground, especially given Lumumba failure to give Thompson the respect his political longevity was due.
In other words, Lumumba crossed Thompson.
As a multi-decade Congressman Thompson has a lot of influence on who President Biden appointed as the U. S. Attorney in his congressional district. Even more so since Biden is a Democrat and Thompson is the sole Democrat in Mississippi’s congressional delegation. It would not be far-fetched to believe that Thomspon had veto power over the appointment of the U. S. Attorney for Mississippi’s southern district.
The appointment went to Todd Gee, who had a history of pursuing white collar criminal investigations, especially public figures.
“I have had the privilege of knowing Todd for a considerable amount of time, witnessing first-hand the maturation of a committed, brilliant legal mind,” said Congressman Bennie Thompson in his press release announcing Gee’s appointment.
Since 2018, Gee has served as the Deputy Chief of the Public Integrity Section of the United States Department of Justice. “The Public Integrity Section (PIN) oversees the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes affecting government integrity, including bribery of public officials,” states its website.
You can make a good argument that Thompson saw what was going down in Jackson, didn’t like it and brought in a top white collar crime expert to put a stop to it. If so, we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Lumumba’s failure to kiss Thompson’s gold ring, as he failed to kiss the gold rings of all the state leaders, is yet another example of Lumumba’s political incompetence, acting arrogantly without regard to political reality. Isn’t this the guy whose political motto was to make Jackson “the most radical city in the world?” Most of us just shrugged this off as a campaign slogan, but he really meant it.
Mississippi just gave Trump one of the biggest percentage votes in the country, despite the fact that 40 percent of its populace are Democrats. There was no way Lumumba was going to create the most radical city in the most conservative state.
Remember all the criticism of state leaders for withholding money from Jackson for water repairs? Turns out their suspicions of corruption were dead on.
The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) takes over failing school districts. Perhaps the state should take over failing cities like Jackson. But just as the MDE had no desire to take over the Jackson Public Schools, the legislature probably has no desire to take over Jackson. Too much work.
So here we are. Jackson voters keep failing abysmally to elect competent leaders. How is this going to change?
Irony of the day: There’s a hilarious local rap song out using the Owens’ quotes in the indictment. The rapper bleeped out most of Owens’ cuss words. Apparently, Owens’ language was too nasty for a rap song.
