We have occasionally chronicled the ongoing probe into whether legendary Mississippi "superlawyer" Dickie Scruggs was involved in a bribe of one Mississippi jurist and illegally sought to influence another state judge by promising him consideration for a federal judgeship.
When the story broke concerning an alleged scheme to obtain favorable rulings from Hinds County (Mississippi) judge Robert Delaughter by dangling a federal judgeship in front of his eyes (see "Deeper Doo-Doo For Dickie Scruggs") we had to wonder whether former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's name would also surface in connection with the investigation. (Lott is seen here describing a fish that evidently got away.)
As we said in our post a few weeks ago: "Lott is Scruggs' brother-in-law and it's hard to see how anyone could credibly have suggested that Delaughter would be considered for a federal judgeship without at least invoking Lott's name, although it could've been done without Lott's knowledge."
Today's Wall Street Journal reports, as we had suspected, that the feds are looking into Lott's role in the scheme. According to the WSJ, a Lott associate confirmed that Lott spoke to Judge Delaughter, but claimed "the call wasn't made specifically at the behest of Mr. Scruggs."
OF COURSE it wasn't. That's not how these things go. Still, it's possible Scruggs asked Lott to make a call without Lott knowing the more sinister purposes of it--indeed, it would be much smarter on Scruggs' part to orchestrate an apparently innocuous call (from Lott's standpoint) than to let the Senator know it was part of a scheme to get a favorable ruling from the judge.
In any event, it appears that Scruggs' day of reckoning draws nie.
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