NEW ORLEANS — The front-runner in the race for governor, Jeff Landry, responded Wednesday to a WWL-TV investigation about a donation Landry received from a Texas lawyer accused of insurance fraud.
The station reported Tuesday that a criminal fraud case against Texas law firm McClenny Moseley & Associates and its owner, Zach Moseley, was referred to Landry’s Attorney General’s Office on April 5, the same day Moseley gave Landry’s gubernatorial campaign a maximum $5,000 donation.
It was the only Louisiana political donation Moseley made.
The Attorney General’s Office said it had deferred to the Louisiana State Police to investigate the matter after the Louisiana Department of Insurance handed over its findings. The AG’s Office said it couldn’t prosecute any criminal case unless a local district attorney requests assistance. The AG’s Louisiana Bureau of Investigation does, however, have jurisdiction to investigate the case.
Landry’s campaign spokeswoman, Kate Kelly, declined to answer WWL’s questions before we published our story Tuesday. Most importantly, Kelly has repeatedly refused to say if Landry would return or otherwise reject Moseley's donation.
But on Wednesday, after the WWL story aired, Kelly went on X, formerly known as Twitter, and called the WWL story "shameful,” "journalistic malpractice" and "election interference." The campaign also posted a statement to its website saying, “David Hammer writes misleading hit piece on Jeff Landry for purpose of election interference.”
The election interference claim is ironic because Hammer investigated Landry's opponent in the 2015 Attorney General election, incumbent Buddy Caldwell. Landry used the reports in a series of TV ads attacking Caldwell and accusing him of cronyism. Landry’s campaign even used the WWL series title “Buddy System” to attack Caldwell and defeat him.
Caldwell’s son David, the former head of the AG’s criminal division, is now the general counsel of the Department of Insurance. WWL interviewed David Caldwell for its investigation of Moseley, and Caldwell confirmed he had referred the case against Moseley to both the AG and the FBI for criminal investigation. He also said he saw clear violations of state law that could be prosecuted.
Landry’s campaign responded by saying, “David Hammer’s source is the son of a former political opponent that Jeff Landry defeated.” It did not say why Caldwell’s involvement in referring Moseley for criminal investigation is relevant to our questions about why Landry’s office did not investigate and why Landry’s campaign won’t say if it will reject the contribution from Moseley.
While Moseley gave the maximum donation allowed from an individual, it’s not even a drop in the bucket of the $12 million Landry’s campaign has received from more than 11,000 donors.
Other Republican candidates have been running ads against Landry, attacking him for the money he’s taken from Moseley and other trial lawyers. When Landry was asked about those attacks at Friday's debate in Lafayette, he directed viewers to his website, Landry.com/Answers for his responses. But before the WWL story aired Tuesday, that website simply showed the word “Answers.”
The campaign did finally post something to the page Wednesday: a statement attacking the WWL story.
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