Republican Congressman Michael Guest is asking voters to judge him on his record as he seeks reelection to Congress this November.

But part of that record involves an investigation into his longtime friend, Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey.

The story began in 2014, when Sheriff Bailey was having an affair with Kristi Pennington Shanks, a married administrative assistant in his office.

But Shanks was also having an affair with another man.

And Sheriff Bailey apparently wanted to know what was going on.

Because, over the course of a year, he illegally obtained at least eight grand jury subpoenas for her phone and text records.

And those requests went directly through Michael Guest’s district attorney’s office.

For nearly a year, Guest’s office continued processing the fraudulent requests, allowing an incredibly powerful legal tool to be used with virtually no oversight.

It took an outside tip in 2016 to even bring the matter to Guest’s attention.

When Guest finally investigated, he uncovered evidence that Sheriff Bailey had deceived his office and potentially committed felony fraud.

But the public didn’t find out for seven years.

Because Guest and Sheriff Bailey were longtime friends and political allies, Guest cited a conflict of interest and referred the case to the state attorney general.

The conflict was real, but the referral also served as a convenient shield.

Guest was able to keep the scandal involving his friend out of public view.

But fulfilling his legal duty did not erase his broader responsibility to the people he had taken an oath to serve.

The people of Rankin County had a right to know what their district attorney had discovered about their elected sheriff.

Instead, Sheriff Bailey remained sheriff and won reelection twice after Guest’s investigation.

And Sheriff Bailey faced no criminal charges.

By the time the findings became public in 2023, the statute of limitations had expired.

There was even precedent for prosecuting similar conduct.

A Meridian police officer who improperly used a grand jury subpoena to obtain his wife’s phone records because he suspected she was cheating was convicted and spent a year in prison.

Sheriff Bailey, meanwhile, remained in office.

And Rankin County lost an opportunity to hold its sheriff accountable.

Years later, in 2023, serious misconduct within Sheriff Bailey’s department became a national scandal.

Five Rankin County deputies and one Richland police officer pleaded guilty to federal crimes stemming from the torture of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker.

The case became known nationwide as the “Goon Squad” scandal and exposed serious failures in law-enforcement oversight within Sheriff Bailey’s department.

Years before that scandal, Michael Guest’s investigation had uncovered evidence of potential criminal misconduct by Sheriff Bailey himself.

But Guest chose to keep the public in the dark.

His silence deprived voters of important information about their sheriff that could have mattered in two elections.

Michael Guest now asks voters to judge him on his record.

And the fact that his findings remained outside public view for seven years, while voters twice reelected a sheriff accused of abusing his authority, is part of the record that voters should judge.