Immune
If Gov. Jeff Landry thinks he’s immune from ethics laws and state or federal prosecution, what might he and his pals be doing with that perceived protection?
It doesn’t take an ethics expert to figure out Gov. Jeff Landry’s motivation for emasculating the state’s ethics code in the recent legislative session: He wants more freedom to engage in conduct that previously would have been legally defined as improper or illegal.
Landry backed legislation that makes it harder to hold public officials accountable for misconduct. The law raises the threshold for launching an investigation, now requiring a two-thirds vote of the ethics board to act, and again to file any charges. That’s all while the board is largely packed with appointees loyal to the governor.
Officials and their allies can now ask a judge to block or delay investigations, using vague standards such as “annoyance” or “expense” as reasons to halt a probe before it begins.
The law hides complainants’ identities, forcing them to sign their names and hand-deliver submissions. That chills would-be whistleblowers and reduces transparency. It strips the board of its ability to act on media reports or advisory opinions, shutting down its chance to self-initiate investigations. It also weakens rules governing officials’ travel, contracts, gifts, and financial disclosures.
What was pitched as “transparency and due process” is, in reality, a shield for potential wrongdoing, tilting the scales toward public officials and away from ethics enforcement.
The timing of this new law is especially troubling, coming just as the board was pursuing charges against Landry. Landry faces an ethics complaint filed by the board stemming from his time as attorney general. The key issue was the undisclosed use of private flights. Landry accepted free plane trips to and from Hawaii courtesy of a campaign donor but did not report them in his official disclosures—a violation of the state ethics law.
Although the new legislation won’t apply retroactively to Landry’s case (but who doubts that he will get off the hook?), the timing was highly suspicious. Landry supported the changes and even had his personal attorney draft the changes.
Landry thinks his behavior is beyond official scrutiny
Whew. Those are a lot of words to explain something very simple: Landry wants to make himself, his staff, and other state officials immune from official scrutiny or punishment for engaging in various kinds of conflicts, self-dealing, and acceptance of improper favors.
On one level, Landry’s actions to put himself out of the Ethics Board’s reach are an extension of the criminal immunity he and his pals already enjoy.
You may not realize it, but Landry is similar to Donald Trump in that he’s not subject to the criminal laws of the United States or Louisiana in any practical sense.
First, it’s difficult—if not impossible—to imagine a Louisiana district attorney, attorney general, or inspector general who would consider charging Landry with public corruption, much less launch any serious investigation of him.
In the past hundred-plus years, no governor has been indicted for public corruption by a state grand jury. Even during the massive “Louisiana Scandals” of 1939-40, it was the federal government that did almost all the investigating and prosecuting. Some of Gov. Richard Leche’s associates were indicted by parish grand juries, but it was the U.S. Justice Department that took down Leche and the other big fish.
That’s probably because of the pain that a governor, like Landry, can inflict on any district attorney who dares investigate him.
For starters, he could punish a rogue district attorney by targeting the state-controlled portions of his budget. While local parishes fund most DA operations, the state provides supplemental funding, especially for salaries, grants, and special programs. The governor also crafts the state budget, can veto DA-related items, and influences how discretionary funds and grants are distributed. Through executive agencies or legislative allies, a governor could delay or cut funding, reduce program support, or deny grants.
All this retribution from a governor is implied, but well understood by every state prosecutor.
Then, there’s the federal level, where, as long as Donald Trump is president, the U.S. Justice Department will not indict a sitting GOP governor, like Landry. Our governor’s friendship and political alliance with Trump mean there’s almost no chance he would ever be investigated or indicted while Trump’s in office.
Trump has corrupted the U.S. Justice Department
That’s because Trump has corrupted the Department of Justice and turned it into an extension of his political machinery, granting blanket immunity to allies, friends, and even those who are convicted criminals.
On Inauguration Day 2025, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 defendants—including Proud Boys and Oath Keepers—wiping out their convictions in a shocking act of political loyalty.
He’s granted pardons or clemency to high-profile figures like Rod Blagojevich, Trevor Milton, and Devon Archer, each with personal ties or financial connections to MAGA circles. He even commuted the sentence of Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover and pardoned ex-Rep. Michael Grimm, despite their serious crimes.
His DOJ dropped corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, apparently to gain leverage over Adams’s political decisions.
These actions are more than personal generosity; they’re evidence of active weaponization of the DOJ to protect Trump loyalists. By firing the traditional pardon attorney, installing a “pardon czar,” and gutting white‑collar enforcement, Trump has signaled that political allegiance to him trumps accountability.
So, there’s no way Jeff Landry and his pals—no matter what they do or what crimes they commit—will ever come under the scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department in a Trump administration.
For all practical purposes, Landry is immune from state and federal law.
So, understanding all this, how would you imagine a Louisiana governor with that degree of immunity might behave?
Well, in Louisiana, at least, we have a handy example.
The Louisiana Scandals of 1939
In 1934-35, Franklin Roosevelt’s Justice Department investigated and prosecuted several close associates of Sen. Huey Long for income tax evasion. Long and Roosevelt had become bitter enemies. Not only did Roosevelt sic his Justice and Treasury department investigators on Long, but he also denied Long all federal patronage in the state and withheld hundreds of millions in much-needed New Deal assistance.
Among the agencies that suffered from this stranglehold on federal assistance was LSU, which desperately needed WPA funds to continue the building program that Long had initiated as governor.
But FDR put that and other funding on ice.
Long’s death in September 1935 changed all that. In 1936, when Dick Leche became governor, he and other Long associates rushed to Washington to make peace with Roosevelt. They pledged their support for his reelection. Leche took the entire Legislature to Dallas that summer, where they endorsed FDR.
Long’s closest associate, Seymour Weiss, led the Louisiana delegation to the Democratic National Convention, which, in a stunning about-face, enthusiastically supported Roosevelt. One of Long’s closest associates, U.S. Sen. Allen Ellender, even seconded FDR’s nomination, no doubt causing Huey to twist in his grave.
The result was what some at the time derided as “the Second Louisiana Purchase.” In return for the support of Leche and other former Long lieutenants, FDR flooded the state with federal money. Suddenly, LSU had millions for new buildings. A new Charity Hospital in New Orleans now had the federal funding it needed. Across the state, federal funds supported the construction of new buildings, the creation of thousands of jobs, and numerous public works projects.
And, just as significant, FDR called off his Justice and Treasury departments. They dropped all the remaining prosecutions of Long organization leaders.
Leche and his associates believed that as long as they remained loyal to Roosevelt, they would not be investigated or prosecuted by the Justice or Treasury departments. And since Leche also controlled every aspect of the state government, they were confident that no district attorney would dare investigate them.
They believed they were, to put it mildly, beyond the reach of state and federal law.
And how did this perceived immunity affect their behavior?
Leche and his cronies stole every federal and state dollar that wasn’t nailed down.
In bribes, kickbacks, commissions, and other various side deals, Leche reported to the IRS income exceeding $500,000 for the tax years 1936-39. In 2025 dollars, that’s $11.5 million. His annual salary as governor was $7,500. (On his 1936 IRS return, Leche reported $90,000 in illicit income as “Other Earnings.”)
Leche wasn’t unashamed of his well-known lust for wealth. “I swore to uphold the constitutions of Louisiana and the United States,” he told a Saturday Evening Post reporter in 1938, “but I didn’t take any vow of poverty.”
Leche wasn’t the only one who believed he was immune. LSU President James Monroe Smith and several other top LSU officials were involved in various kickback and other schemes that netted them substantial wealth.
LSU’s construction superintendent, George Caldwell, accepted at least $100,000 in kickbacks from contractors during the 1930s. That’s equal to about $2.3 million in 2025 dollars. His annual salary was $6,000.
Until the whole house of cards came crashing down in the summer of 1939 (thanks mostly to some enterprising journalists and brave whistleblowers), Leche and his cronies thought they were immune from prosecution. But even Roosevelt couldn’t protect them once their crimes became a national scandal.
Leche, Smith, Weiss, and dozens of others went to federal prison.
(By the way, this scandal is the subject of my next book, one that I started writing in June.)
From the moment Leche and others thought they were immune, human nature ruled their behavior. They acted like many politicians and public officials might if they thought they could never be held accountable for a crime.
Leche vs. Landry
Put another way, Leche behaved just like you’d imagine Landry and his pals might if they thought they could never be prosecuted.
And I’d wager that Landry believes—probably with good reason—that, unlike FDR, Trump would never reach a point when he would have to unleash his prosecutors on a political ally.
Roosevelt, for all his faults, knew there were limits to what kind of crime and chicanery he could tolerate. Trump, as we know, knows no such limits.
All that’s to say that I don’t know what unethical or illegal behavior Landry and his crowd might be involved in. I have no idea what rules or laws they are breaking, what bribes or kickbacks they might be accepting, or what lucrative schemes they could be involved in.
But I do know this: While they are immune from prosecution, they are no more immune to the temptations of great wealth and political power than Leche and his pals. That’s because they’re human.
It’s possible that Landry and others may worry about the fact that Trump won’t be president in four years and will be unable to protect them. They may understand that the statute of limitations for some crimes may not have expired when a Democrat might be president in 2029. Maybe that will temper their behavior. Let’s hope it does.
But my guess is that it’s more likely Landry and his cronies think they’re immune to any consequences—forever. They’ve certainly made themselves immune to the state’s ethics laws, and, practically, they may be immune in every other sense.
Whatever they’re doing with that perceived immunity, will anyone be surprised if it eventually ends in scandal?
And that’s why we must support strong local and state media organizations
The fact that there’s no federal or state investigative organization capable of policing our governor and other statewide elected officials makes it all the more critical that you and I support news media organizations that do this kind of work.
I won’t name them here, but you know who they are: your local newspaper, your NPR radio station, and your local PBS station.
Subscribe and/or donate to them.
For now, the intrepid local investigative reporters may be our only hope.
I always like your ties between the present and the history that informs it. This is even fun to read while nailing the dangers of the way our governor, among many other governors and state officials, are grabbing the levers of power to suppress democracy. One has to wonder how Landry is looking at Trump's current twisting and turning with discomfort.
Joe Morris Doss
Another great article. Thank you. I appreciate learning about the history of Louisiana. It is comforting to read about the past travesties and how justice was ultimately delivered. I look forward to your next book.