The richest man in Mississippi, Tom Duff, and his brother James Duff, have been under a Justice Department investigation for potentially defrauding a federal pandemic-era relief program of $6.7 million since 2024, court records show. A lawsuit filed against the brothers by Relator LLC claims the two “looted the government” by filing “falsified loan documents to the Small Business Administration in order to obtain taxpayer-funded payments through the Paycheck Protection Program.” The case will move to Mississippi after a federal judge in March granted the Duffs’ motion to transfer the case. According to the documents, the brothers applied for the loans using their tire company, the Southern Tire Mart, which is valued at upward of $3.5 billion. Congress created the program in March of 2020 to keep businesses afloat as the global economy slowed to a halt at the outset of the pandemic.  As seen in court filings, the attorneys for the Duff brothers refuted the claims, arguing the lawsuit relies on “inflammatory rhetoric” instead of factual evidence. The brothers’ legal team noted that the California attorneys acting against them have filed similar lawsuits against other individuals, some of which have been dismissed by federal judges. They also claim the lawsuit is the product of trial lawyers looking to score judicial wins from the grey area surrounding pandemic-era government programs.   Matthew D. Miller, one of the brother’s attorneys, told Mississippi Today that he expected his clients to be “fully vindicated by the judicial process.” “The PPP loans were lawfully obtained, fully disclosed and reviewed by banks, the SBA and federal attorneys,” Miller wrote in a statement to the outlet. “This case is exactly the kind of parasitic, web-scraped lawsuit that courts have repeatedly rejected from this plaintiff. The allegations were also independently reviewed by the Department of Justice which, after this review, declined to intervene in this lawsuit.” The judicial proceedings could complicate the outlook of Tom Duff, who is rumored to be running for governor in 2027. “If he decides to run for governor, he’s absolutely among the top runners, if not the top runner,” said Austin Barbour, a state and national GOP strategist and lobbyist. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson told the outlet that Tom Duff is “someone who could really excite all of Mississippi” as a candidate for governor. In recent months, the brothers have created the Duff PAC, which will be used to support candidates in the state’s gubernatorial race.