The Mississippi Republican Party asked Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch in an Oct. 22 letter to investigate whether Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom broke the law by using an AI-generated campaign ad to depict his opponent, Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, running from reporters outside of the U.S. Capitol.
The ad features an AI-generated Hyde-Smith being confronted by reporters, covering her face with a folder and running through the halls of the U.S. Capitol building to avoid questions. The ad claims the depiction is “based on a true story,” but does not disclose it was created using AI.
In the Republican Party’s letter, chairman Mike Hurst claims Colom’s ad could potentially violate Mississippi Code § 97-13-47, a statute that makes it a crime for a person to knowingly disseminate a deceptive AI-generated digitization of a candidate within 90 days of an election. The letter also asks Fitch to seek an injunctive relief to prevent Colom from using the video or any similar AI content.
“Mississippi law is clear. You cannot manufacture a fake video of your opponent and pass it off to voters as real in the final weeks of an election,” Hurst said in an Oct. 22 press release. “Scott Colom didn’t label this video as artificial intelligence. Instead, he claimed it was ‘based on a true story.’ That isn’t satire. It isn’t parody. It’s deception, and Mississippi voters deserve better.”
Mississippi and 30 other states have laws that require disclaimers on political ads that use AI-generated content. Mississippi’s 2024 law prohibits a person from using someone’s likeness to create an AI-generated ad unless the ad has a disclaimer.
However, the state’s 2024 has some loopholes that political candidates can skirt around because it does not include “content that constitutes satire or parody,” which could apply to Colom’s AI-generated video of Hyde-Smith running from reporters.
The law says that a person who knowingly disseminates an AI-generated depiction of a political candidate is “guilty of a crime and may be sentenced to prison time, if the person knows or has actual knowledge that the item being disseminated is a digitization and the dissemination (either) takes place within ninety days of an election; is disseminated without the consent of the depicted individual; (or) is disseminated with the intent to injure the candidate, influence the results of an election or deter any person from voting.”
Hurst claims Colom’s AI-generated ad is neither parody nor satire.
“Mr. Colom’s deepfake AI-generated video is also not a ‘parody,’ as it is not a ‘literary or musical work’ where ‘the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule” nor a ‘feeble or ridiculous imitation,’” the chairman wrote in the letter to Fitch. “Mr. Colom has attempted to make this video look real and is attempting to use this video to injure Senator Hyde-Smith, influence an election, or deter people from voting, not for comic effect.”
To back his claims, Hurst pointed to an interview Colom did with WAPT’s Ross Adams on Oct. 10, when the Democrat said he was “trying to get young peoples’ attention. We’re trying to find greater ways to get their attention.”
Colom’s campaign manager Gerard Henderson defended the campaign’s use of AI to generate the video of Hyde-Smith in an Oct. 22 statement to the Mississippi Free Press.
“This is clearly an act of desperation and an attempt to weaponize public office against political opponents,” Henderson wrote. “Instead, there are serious questions that deserve answers: Did Cindy Hyde-Smith misuse campaign funds for trips to Las Vegas? Why did she vote against releasing the Epstein files? Republicans are worried about November 3. Clearly this is a joke, but what isn’t a joke is the impact of Cindy Hyde-Smith’s record on Mississippi farmers, small businesses, and working families. Those are the issues Mississippians deserve answers on.”
Fitch will have to determine whether Colom’s AI-portrayal of Hyde-Smith, which came 33 days before the Nov. 3 election, violated the law.
“Scott Colom is a licensed attorney, an officer of the court, and a sitting District Attorney—the chief law enforcement officer for an entire judicial district. It is sad when those elected to uphold the law refuse to follow it themselves,” Hurst said in the Oct. 22, 2026, press release. “Mississippi voters deserve the truth, not manufactured images designed to mislead them about their elected officials. We are calling on the Attorney General (to) investigate these criminal violations, put an end to these criminal acts, and show Mississippians that no one is above the law.”
In September, a reporter from “The Don Lemon Show” attempted to approach Hyde-Smith to ask her what she thought about the grand jury’s decision not to indict anyone for the death of Nolan Wells. The senator attempted to tell the reporter that she was not willing to do an interview, and she walked over to a security guard to dismiss the reporter.
“Sir, I don’t do the hallway interviews,” Hyde-Smith said repeatedly.
The security guard told the reporter to stop harassing the senator, noting that Hyde-Smith said she did not want to do an interview. Another security guard approached the reporter as the Republican senator boarded a train and left the area.
“The reality is, I’m pointing out her hypocrisy,” Colom said of Hyde-Smith on Oct. 8. “She’s on the committee that has jurisdiction over AI and data centers. She could make it illegal to do that. She could regulate AI. She refuses to do it because they got her bought and paid for. They’re running ads on her behalf. So, the reality is, if you try to ask a question, she might call security on you. I’m portraying a true story. She calls security on voters.”
This is not the first time in which the Democrat has used fictional methods to depict Hyde-Smith. Last year, he posted a fake phone call with Mississippi’s junior senator on social media when kicking off his campaign.
On Sept. 3, 2025, Colom held his phone as he sat at a wooden table, telling viewers in a social media video that he was about to call Hyde-Smith to “wish her a good night.” Nothing in the video or its caption disclosed that the phone call was fake.
The Mississippi Republican Party called upon the U.S. Department of Justice and Clay Joyner, the acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi, to investigate the fake phone call video in September 2025. Hurst alleged that Colom “falsely impersonate(d)” the U.S. senator as a way to “trick” voters into “supporting” Colom, citing U.S. Code Title 18, Section 912.
However, there have been no public statements as to whether an investigation into the call was started.
After the 2025 GOP letter, Colom told the Mississippi Free Press that parodying a public figure is protected by the First Amendment, as shown by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell.
“The video is an obvious parody. And the voice is clearly not Cindy Hyde-Smith and the voice never says that she’s Senator Hyde-Smith,” Colom said in a Sept. 11, 2025, statement to the Mississippi Free Press.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of the 2026 elections and read past stories here.
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