AM Daily Journal

LOTT'S POLITICAL CIRCLE LINKED TO DRUG PLANE PROBE

JACKSON -- Whistle-blowers. Thank goodness we have a few of them emerging
in Mississippi, opening up some dark corners where taxpayers' money has
gone that people wouldn't know about if some folks hadn't blown the whistle.

The latest whistle blast has come from former Jackson TV executive Frank
Melton, who for several years crusaded on his own against the drug trade,
and now is doing so for the state.

Melton, now director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics has thrown open
an investigator's report on a nasty little caper orchestrated by an aide to
Sen. Trent Lott shifting two MBN aircraft worth $900,000 to two Coast
counties - at no cost.

Done before Melton took over the agency, the deal is increasingly smelly
because the transfer bore the signature of MBN agent Warren Buchanan that
obviously was forged.

The MBN investigator's report has been turned over by Melton to State
Auditor Phil Bryant, who last week began his own probe. Additionally,
Melton has sent his investigator's report to the Air Force Inspector General.

"Somebody ought to go to jail," said a fuming Melton, "and if this thing
leads all the way to Trent Lott, I say let the chips fall where they may."

Robbie Maxwell, who formerly worked for Lott in his Gulfport office and has
since been boosted by Lott to a job as head the U.S. Justice Department's
Police Corps program, is the key figure in implementing the MBN aircraft deal.

Significantly, Maxwell also figures in another probe by an Air Force
Inspector General into indigenous corruption in a Meridian-based
Mississippi Air National Guard unit. It arises from allegations including
operation of an illicit liquor business to the unit's lone black pilot
being forced to resign amid racial slurs.

Maxwell, who Lott once planned to make sergeant-at-arms of the U.S. Senate,
is reportedly shown in documents to have been the recipient of a
specially-modified $1,000 Air Force pilot's headset for his personal use in
learning to fly a Narcotics Bureau airplane that had been transferred from
the Meridian base to Hancock County.

Allegations in the Meridian Air Guard probe, which already have resulted in
the commanding officer and several top officers of the targeted unit
resigning under pressure, arose from an ex-Air Guard officer blowing the
whistle more than two years ago on corrupt practices happening inside the unit.

Col. Jody Bryant, formerly with the 186th Air Refueling Wing, which is the
prime target of the probe, had over two years documented several dozen
complaints that have now been turned over to federal investigators.

Bryant's charges of corruption at the Meridian base had been brushed off by
former acting Mississippi Adjutant General George Walker in 2000, and
resulted in Bryant being booted out of the Air Guard for raising the
allegations.

Now a commercial pilot for FedEx, and a colonel in the Army reserve,
Bryant, 51, finally persuaded the present Adjutant General, James Lipscomb,
last year to forward the charges he raised to the Air Force Inspector
General's office. An AFIG report in December found a number of violations
by the 186th top officers including the racial incident, plus falsified
reports.

Recently, a follow-up probe of corruption at the Meridian Air Guard base
was launched at Gen. Lipscomb's request, to be headed by Col. Ken Emmanuel,
a staff judge advocate for the Florida Air National Guard. MNB Director
Melton has also turned over the Narcotics bureau investigator's findings to
Emmanuel.

On a third front, an unnamed source is known to have asked the Office of
Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to look into a
series of allegations of Hatch Act violations and political favoritism by
the USDA Rural Development Agency Mississippi director Nick Walters, a
political appointee of the Bush Administration.

Walters, previously an activist in Republican state politics and an
unsuccessful GOP candidate for secretary of state in 1999, had been
nominated two years ago to the $120,000-a year USDA job by Sens. Thad
Cochran and Trent Lott.

One allegation was that during the 2002 3rd District Congressional race
Walters had set up a number of USDA grant awards in the district and had
Republican Chip Pickering make the announcements to the exclusion of his
Democratic opponent, Ronnie Shows, both of whom were incumbent congressmen
at the time of the election.

Robert Collier, who retired last December as Southwest Mississippi director
for the Rural Development agency after more than 30 years with the USDA,
said he "heard mention" that Walters arranged grant award announcements
events to benefit Pickering, but that he was not asked to personally take
part in such events.

"He (Walters) is a politician, and ambitious," declared Collier, "there's
no question about that."

Ken Stribling, a former GOP state legislator who serves as Walters'
information officer, conceded that "we did a lot of publicity when we would
do a grant in the Third District," but insisted that it was because
Pickering was more aggressive than Shows in seeking USDA grants in the
district.

"We didn't hear anything from Shows," Stribling said.

Shows, who lost the 2002 race to Pickering, said from his home in Bassfield
that in his four years as the congressman from the former Southwest
Mississippi Fourth district "We pushed for as many USDA grants as it was
possible to get. I've always lived in a small, rural county and I know the
needs of rural areas."

Specifically asked about a grant to the town of Magnolia to buy police cars
that Pickering announced just several days prior to the Nov. 5, 2002,
election, Shows said he had "not been invited" to take part.

Collier said he had nothing to do with the allegations sent to the USDA,
but added "someone must have known what they were talking about."

Stribling said he had heard of no OIG investigation but surmised that the
allegations may have come from someone connected with the agency.

"There are some people who do not like what Nick has done to shake up the
agency," he added.

Bill Minor is a syndicated columnist who has covered Mississippi politics
since 1947. His address is Box 1243, Jackson, MS 39215.