Louisiana Voice

Jeff Landry wants it both ways.

Problem is, perception is everything and the perception, his double-speak notwithstanding, is that he is simultaneously suing a state agency and appointing the assistant attorney general wo will defend that agency.

That doesn’t quite pass the conflict-of-interest smell test.

Moreover, he penned a letter to another Baton Rouge lawyer earlier this week in which he put his long-standing character of non-professionalism on vivid display,

Of course, he probably thought the contents of that letter would remain shrouded in secrecy like a few other shadowy activities:

• The hiring the daughter of a third-place opponent in 2015 primary election to the AG’s FRAUD SECTION despite her past conviction and suspended prison sentence on three counts of … credit card fraud,
• The hiring Harvey Gulf executive Shane Guidry as a “special agent/investigator,” who in turn appointed Landry to the Harvey Gulf Board at a salary of between $50,000 and $100,000, a move that the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission called “A PRETTY CLEAR CONFLICT” since state law forbids work outside the AG’s office.
• His pet project for FINDING MISSING CHILDREN turned out to be a scheme concocted by a grifter that drew support from a number of heavy-hitting Texas politicos as well as Landry. While attracting influential support, the program didn’t actually find any missing children.
• He was part of a $17 million scam to hire MEXICAN WELDERS and pipefitters under H-2B visa rules through three companies owned by him and his brother, Ben Landry.

So, as you can see by the above examples, our attorney general-governor wannabe is not above twisting and distorting the rules governing his office so it should come as no surprise that has set his office up as both plaintiff and defendant in a lawsuit against Gov. John Bel Edwards and the State Pardon Board in an effort to stop capital clemency hearings requested by Edwards.

And when Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith, III had the temerity to to suggest that Landry might have a conflict of interest in serving in both capacities, Landry’s response was a few light years from being professional.

Landry opened his two-page letter by saying, “Your letter indicating that a conflict exists calls into question your competency as a lawyer.”

You mean competency like sitting on the Harvey Gulf board? Like hiring a convicted felon (for fraud, no less) to your office’s fraud division as payback for her mother’s endorsement? Or maybe owning a company that supplied foreign workers to a contractor for a large pipeline project?

Ever heard of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau? CFPB is a federal agency charged with protecting consumers from predatory lending and banking practices. In July, 26 Republican attorneys general signed a PETITION asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow them to intervene on behalf of lenders who were suing to ABOLISH CFPB. Guess who one of those attorneys general was? I’ll save you the intrigue: Jeff Landry.

For that answer, you may wish to check the rankings of the 32 states that still offer little or no regulation of predatory lenders. Just as an example, one who borrows $500 in LOUISIANA  from one of these lenders can expect to be required to repay a total of $935 after just four months. That’s an annual percentage rate of 405 percent, 7^th highest of the 32 states. (Idaho borrowers would be called upon to repay a total of $1,500 on that $500, an annual percentage rate of 652 percent, highest of the 32 states.)

And Landry is one of the 26 attorneys general who wants abolish the only agency standing between lenders and these plunderers. Does that sound like a candidate who really has the best interest of Louisianans at heart?

But back to that Sept. 26 letter. Landry goes to great pains to explain how the Louisiana Constitution dictates that he (a) is suing the board to enforce the state’s open meetings laws because he said the board hired Smith’s firm illegally (without a vote and without the hiring being on the board’s meeting agenda) and (b) the ethical rules for private law firms “are not necessarily applicable to the Attorney General’s Office.”

Otherwise, he said, “every employee, department, and appointed or elected official in state government could raise a potential conflict if it ever received legal services from the Attorney General.”

“There is no constitutional or statutory mandate for the Attorney General’s Office to represent the board,” Landry wrote. “As a courtesy, there has been a longstanding practice of the Attorney General providing an Assistant Attorney General to provide general advice and legal representation as needed.”

Consider his solicitor general, Liz Murrill, who is seeking his job now that he’s trying to move across the lake to the Capitol. The Baton Rouge law firm Taylor Porter currently has several contracts with the state totaling $865,000. Her husband, John Murrill, is a partner in the firm.

Smith was terminated after only one day of defending the pardon board and replaced by Joshua Force of the New Orleans firm Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert.

And while the choice of contract attorneys to serve as assistant attorneys general is the responsibility of the attorney general, it’s somewhat interesting to note that Sher Garner has made $10,500 in campaign contributions to Landry in 2015 and 2020 and currently has four state contracts worth $790,000, including two with the attorney general’s office valued at $270,000.

So apparently, ethics and conflicts of interest, like beauty, are in the eyes of the beholder and Landry is quickly becoming beholden to a lot of special interests that appear to call his ethics into question.