Republican candidate for Attorney General, Mike Hurst, says he will not pull a television ad accusing his opponent, incumbent, Jim Hood, of interfering with an investigation of a corrupt public official. Hurst says the information contained in the ad is factual.
If you watched TV at all this weekend, you may have seen this commercial.
The ad features Simpson County Sheriff Ken Lewis accusing someone in Attorney General Jim Hood's office of leaking information to a Mendenhall police chief that he was the target of a corruption investigation before closing the case.
But officials with Jim Hood's reelection campaign are calling the ad a lie and want it taken down. John Compretta is Hood's campaign manager. He says records show that the case was handed over to the FBI per their request.
"At a certain point, the FBI contacted the office to let them know that they were investigating the case and asked them to stand-down, which they did," Compretta says. "That police chief was prosecuted and convicted."
Compretta also says Hurst's campaign owes an apology to investigators and staff who he shamefully accused of wrongdoing, but Hurst maintains that the ad is factual.
"So all of the documents that they have presented just verifies what the sheriff has said, what our campaign has said and what the facts are," says Hurst. "No, there is no reason to pull and advertisement that is completely factual."
Hood and Hurst are the only two candidates for attorney general in the Nov. 3 election.
