By Taylor Vance and Michael Goldberg | Originally published by Mississippi Today
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Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch said Friday that Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, likely violated state law with a digital ad that featured an artificial intelligence-generated depiction of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith running away from reporters.
Colom told Mississippi Today he would delete the post because he didn’t want Fitch to launch litigation with taxpayer money. That came after Fitch sent Colom a complaint letter demanding that he remove that ad from his social media accounts. If he did not, the complaint said, the attorney general’s office could file an injunction against him.
“As violations of this election integrity law can carry criminal penalties, Attorney General Fitch has also asked Scott Colom and his campaign to preserve all records related to this matter so as not to obstruct justice,” the statement reads.
In a statement, Colom said that Hyde-Smith is “clearly desperate” and that she and her allies are “once again trying to weaponize the justice system to distract from the real issues, which is that she has sold out our farmers, sold out our small businesses, and sold out our families.”
“Clearly this was parody, maybe too close to home because she knows she does love to hide from her own constituents and reporters,” Colom said.
Fitch’s threat is the latest salvo between Colom’s campaign and the state GOP in a race that has generated national attention and millions of dollars from national party interests leading up to the Nov. 3 election. National pundits are saying the Mississippi race, initially taken for granted by Republicans, is in play.
The complaint follows a letter that Mississippi GOP Chairman Mike Hurst sent to Fitch asking her to launch an investigation and criticizing the Colom campaign for not labeling the content as AI-generated.
After a rally with former Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, before Fitch had acceded to Hurst’s request to investigate the matter, Colom said Republicans were mounting a coordinated attack to distract from his campaign’s increasing momentum. He pointed out that the ad has been up for weeks, yet Hurst and Fitch were first opining on the matter 11 days before the election.
“They understand that I’m a threat. Mike Hurst does this all the time. Every time somebody gets competitive, they try to weaponize the justice system to intimidate their opponents,” Colom said. “I thought they weren’t snowflakes. You’re telling me they can’t take a joke?”
If Fitch does pursue legal action, it would be a rare instance of her office enforcing campaign laws.
During the 2023 statewide election cycle, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann claimed for months that his Republican primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, violated campaign finance laws by accepting more than the state’s legal limit from corporations.
Several Mississippi Republicans agreed that it was a clear-cut example of a campaign-finance law violation, but Fitch later declined to pursue any action against the campaign or the leaders of a political action committee involved in the donations.
Her reluctance to investigate or prosecute alleged campaign finance violations prompted other state leaders to call for reform and more enforcement. Most of those attempts have failed in the Legislature.
Hurst and Fitch issued similar statements about a Democrat close to a competitive election. Fitch shortly before last year’s elections said she was investigating former state Rep. Sonya Williams Barnes, the Democratic nominee for mayor of Gulfport, over allegations that residents had received meal vouchers in exchange for voting. No charges were filed against Williams Barnes.
