6:31 PM ET

The Mississippi Department of Human Services is one of 38 defendants being sued by the Hall of Fame quarterback and his company.

The motion states that the MDHS is trying to distract attention from its own wrongdoing by filing a lawsuit against the celebrity.

According to a Mississippi state audit, at least $77 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds, which originated from MDHS before flowing to nonprofits, were diverted from the poor to the rich. Five people have pleaded guilty to state charges and six others have been arrested. The civil suit was filed on May 9th.

Eric Herschmann said in an email that the lawsuit was nothing more than a baseless attempt to blame the Vikings quarterback for the welfare funds not being properly monitored. Mr. Favre had no control over how Mississippi spent its money. He didn't make any misrepresentations.

MDHS doesn't want to try this case in the media, and we believe that merits of the case will stand on their own. We will leave that to a court to make a decision.

According to a representative from the state auditor's office, it's ridiculous to say that Mr. As far as our office is concerned, Mr.

According to the state audit and a civil lawsuit, White was paid more than one million dollars for speeches he never made. The state is trying to get the amount of interest he owes.

Prevacus received funds as well as the top investor and stockholder in the company. $5 million in welfare money was given to the athletic foundation at the University of Southern Mississippi. Text messages show that when his daughter was on the volleyball team, he pushed for funding for a new facility. The volleyball facility was not mentioned in the civil lawsuit, but the motion filed by Favre's lawyers said that it was one of the false pretexts to target him.

According to the motion filed Monday, "Favre has already repaid to MDHS the only funds MDHS alleges he received" and that MDHS can't claim that he ever received any payments to Prevacus." The motion said that he did not know where the money came from. In October, he told Fox News Digital that he had been smeared in the media.

vre did not know that any funds he received were TANF funds or were subject to a legal use restriction

The State Auditor has acknowledged that Mr. Favre didn't know welfare funds were involved. Six months after he found out, he returned all of the funds he received. The State Auditor acknowledges that Mr. Favre's conduct deserves applause. The case will be thrown out after the court reviews our motion.

According to the text messages, New was asked if the media could find out where the money came from and how much.

New has been convicted of fraud. After Phil Bryant told him that misuse of public funds could be illegal, he continued to push for money.