paxton, ken AG

see capt bak 819 mofo swat abuela

11 tags

TARGETED by jcn?

https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Attorney_General_election,_2014

voter suppression

dan branch: https://ballotpedia.org/Dan_Branch

hard to tally up damage from 2 raga TX abbott and paxton

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angling for trump pardon or just proof of post trump k?

9-0 scotus slapdown

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an com dr 8 24

The “Party of Lincoln,” as Republicans call themselves, seems intent on undermining just about everything President Abraham Lincoln lived and died for. This includes Republican efforts to upend the way elections are run, by restricting who gets to vote, how voting is conducted, and how votes are counted and certified.

The outcome of the tight presidential race between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will hinge on the votes in a handful of swing states. From Georgia to Arizona, Nevada to Michigan, Republicans are mounting an all-out assault on the election process that journalist Ari Berman refers to as a “five-alarm fire for democracy.”

“It appears that Georgia Republicans are laying the groundwork not to certify the presidential election if Kamala Harris wins,” Berman said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “They’re doing exactly what Trump wanted them to do in 2020. Trump made Georgia the epicenter of the attempt to try to overturn the election. He asked local and State Board of Elections and election officials not to certify the election. They refused to do so; they followed the law. It seems like in 2024 they’re going to extraordinary lengths to try to implement the measures that failed in 2020, to try to rig the election for Trump.”

The Republican Party of today, desperate to suppress the votes of people of color, could not be further from the Party of Lincoln.

Georgia Republicans altered how counties count and certify votes. The Democratic Party of Georgia, the Democratic National Committee, and 10 Democratic county election officials from across Georgia have sued, seeking to roll back the changes. Their lawsuit argues, “Georgia’s State Election Board has passed a host of last-minute rules that threaten to sow chaos and impede the vote-canvassing process.”

Berman warns: “These state and local election boards have been taken over, in some cases, by election deniers, by MAGA extremists…The administration of elections matters so much because you can cast a vote, you can have your vote counted, but it doesn’t actually matter until votes are certified.”

In Texas, the Republican-controlled state government has for years tried to restrict voting in districts where Democratic candidates do well. Donald Trump won Texas by over five percentage points in 2020, but President Joe Biden won the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and El Paso as well as the Rio Grande Valley.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week that he has purged over 1 million voters from Texas voter rolls. This increasingly common tactic inevitably removes legally-registered voters, often through faulty data screens that target likely Democratic voters.

Meanwhile, Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s currently agreed to do community service to avoid a felony criminal securities fraud trial, and survived an unrelated impeachment trial in the Republican-controlled state senate, has been raiding nonprofit organizations that provide services to immigrant and Latino communities.

Last week, under Paxton’s orders, the homes of a dozen members of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, were raided and searched by Texas authorities, including SWAT teams. One activist’s door was broken down. Texas House candidate Cecilia Castellano, running for an open seat to represent Uvalde, the town devastated by one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history, had her home raided. Government agents took her cell phone and, weeks ahead of election day, threw her campaign into chaos.

LULAC said in a statement, “Attorney General Paxton’s actions clearly aim to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in favor of his political allies.” LULAC has called on the Justice Department to investigate Paxton over the raids.

Juan Proaño, CEO of LULAC, said on Democracy Now!, “In the last U.S. Census, they reported 12.1 million Latinos in the state of Texas. For the first time, Latinos actually outnumber non-Hispanic whites, which is at 12 million. When you take into account not just the Latino population in the state of Texas, but the African American and Asian population… the minority community in Texas now stands at over 60%. Texas is and has been a majority-minority state. So, we see these, effectively, as tactics for the Republicans to actually stay in control of the government in Texas.”

If further evidence of Republican attempts to subvert the will of the voters were needed, Pluribus News, a nonprofit news organization, reports that Republican-controlled state governments are altering language on progressive state ballot initiatives to confuse or mislead voters. Arizona, for example, inserted “unborn human being” in place of fetus or embryo in the ballot initiative intended to guarantee the right to an abortion. Voters in Florida and Ohio will face similar confusing language in their ballot initiatives.

In President Lincoln’s final public address, three days before his assassination, Lincoln advocated that the right to vote be granted to formerly enslaved Black men (as only men could legally vote, until 1920). The Republican Party of today, desperate to suppress the votes of people of color, could not be further from the Party of Lincoln.

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trib

The League of United Latin American Citizens plans to request a federal investigation into raids Attorney General Ken Paxton conducted this week as part of what he called an “ongoing election integrity investigation.”

Gabriel Rosales, Texas LULAC’s state director, said in a statement that Paxton carried out the raids 11 weeks before the 2024 elections “to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in favor of his political allies.”

Agents raided the home of Cecilia Castellano — the Democrat running to succeed state Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde — and confiscated her phone as part of the search, according to Rosales. Republicans see that seat, which Gov. Greg Abbott carried by nearly 6 percentage points, as their best potential state House flip in November.

Law enforcement also searched the homes of at least five other Latino individuals, all of whom were working on Castellano’s campaign and three of whom are members of Texas LULAC, Rosales added. LULAC is a non-partisan, volunteer-based Hispanic civil rights organization headquartered in Washington.

The group is in the dark about the details of any accusations, Rosales said, “but there's none that we’ve been privy to that merits an investigation like this that wastes taxpayers’ money.”

“It is disgraceful and outrageous that the state of Texas, and its highest-ranking law enforcement officer is once again using the power of his office to instill fear in the hearts of community members who volunteer their time to promote civic engagement,” Rosales said in a statement.

Paxton announced on Wednesday that his office executed “multiple” search warrants in Frio, Atascosa and Bexar counties the day prior as part of an investigation into allegations of “election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.” A two-year investigation, Paxton said, provided “sufficient evidence” to obtain the search warrants.

“Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said in a statement. “We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”

Paxton’s office did not reply to a request for additional information. His announcement did not detail the targets of the raids, the number of raids, or the reason specific homes were searched.

“It’s still very vague,” Rosales said in an interview. “That’s what’s really unnerving about the whole situation.”

According to one person whose home was raided, Rosales said, law enforcement suggested that he was accused of possessing “illegal voter information” — a claim that he denied and called politically motivated, saying voter information is publicly available.

“There’s no there, there,” Rosales said. “They’re using every tool in the toolbox to intimidate our people from coming out to the polls.”

The Texas Tribune

Rosales said he was working with the group’s national leaders and attorneys to draft a formal complaint with the U.S. Justice Department requesting a federal investigation into Paxton’s raids.

The attorney general’s office was asked to investigate the allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting during the 2022 elections by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, a Republican whose district includes Frio and Atascosa counties.

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guard

one of the United States’ oldest Latino civil rights organizations is raising alarm after several of its members had their homes raided as part of a voter fraud investigation by the Texas attorney general’s office.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) wants the Department of Justice to investigate raids on at least three of its members in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement last week his office had executed multiple search warrants in Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, as well as neighboring Frio and Atascosa counties as part of an ongoing, two-year investigation. The office did not provide details of the investigation or respond to a request for comment.

No one has been arrested and the exact nature of the investigation remains unclear. But the searches themselves were designed to intimidate, Lulac officials said.

‘A different level than 2020’: Trump’s plan to steal election is taking shape

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/trump-overturn-result-presidential-election-vote)

“They’re trying to intimidate our folks that are out registering people,” said Lulac’s president, Roman Palomares. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to intimidate, and then that has repercussions down the line here, where folks read about that and they go, ‘God, I mean, if they’re doing that to her and I’m a registrar, God, how are they going to go after me?’”

A justice department spokesperson said the agency was aware of the matter and declined to comment further.

Lidia Martinez, 87, said nine officers from the attorney general’s office showed up at her front door at 6am last Tuesday and spent hours searching her home as she watched in her nightgown. She said they told her they were there because she had filed a complaint that senior citizens were not receiving their ballots.

Martinez was taken outside in front of her neighbors while officers searched the house, she said. Eventually, the officers left with her laptop, planner and cellphone.

View image in fullscreen

Lidia Martinez, center, a volunteer and great-grandmother whose home was searched, center, speaks at a news conference for Lulac on Monday. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

“I asked them why are you all doing this? And he said because there was fraud,” she said. “I said I’m not doing anything illegal. All I do is help the seniors.”

Texas has extremely strict rules around mail-in balloting. Only those who are sick, out of the county on election day, confined in jail, giving birth within three weeks of election day, or aged 65 and older are authorized to request a mail-in ballot. Anyone who assists someone in requesting a ballot must fill out a form indicating they assisted. Anyone who assists the voter in returning the actual ballot, other than a family or household member, must sign the envelope with the ballot noting their assistance.

Texas leans on new voting law to reject thousands of ballot applications

Read more](

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/11/save-act-voting-bill-passes-house)

Paxton’s investigations come as Republicans have sought to fan fears about non-citizen voting, which is extremely rare, ahead of this fall’s election.

A copy of the search warrant for Martinez provided by Lulac showed officers were instructed to collect evidence of violations of the Texas law that prohibits collecting mail-in ballots for compensation or “to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure”. Officers were also instructed to gather evidence of a Texas law prohibiting the fraudulent use or possession of personal identifying information.

Martinez said the officers asked her about other Lulac members and Manuel Medina, a Democratic political operative and former chair of the Democratic party in Bexar county. Medina’s home was also searched last week, the Texas Tribune reported. An affidavit from Texas attorney general’s office investigator obtained by the outlet says officials have a recording of Medina discussing a scheme to collect votes for Cecilia Castellano, a Democrat running for a competitive state House seat.

Castellano said on Monday that her home had also been searched. Officers showed up at 6am with flashlights while her son was sleeping, she said.

“This is how the Republican party works. They cause confusion, false allegations and wasteful spending of our tax dollars,” she said.

CBS News

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton raids Latino Democrats' homes, including those of LULAC members

21 hours ago

4:15

YouTube · CBS News

LULAC member describes Paxton voter fraud raid

Video21 hours ago

KHOU

87-year-old LULAC volunteer said AG Ken Paxton sent officers to raid her home

21 hours ago

More news

LULAC wants federal investigation of Texas AG over home ...

ABC Chicago

https://abc7chicago.com › post › lulac-wants-federal-in...

22 hours ago — A prominent Latino group is calling on the DOJ to investigate Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for what it calls "voter intimidation."

Texas AG raids homes of Latino civil rights group members ...

NBC News

https://www.nbcnews.com › news › latino › house-raids...

2 days ago — The raids have triggered outrage and cries of voter suppression in Texas, a state with a long history of discrimination against citizens of ...

Texas Republicans accused of intimidation after raiding ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › article › aug

1 day ago — League of United Latin American Citizens calls on US justice department to look into raids on at least three members.

LULAC member describes Paxton voter fraud raid

CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com › video › lulac-member-desc...

23 hours ago — Lidia Martinez, a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens, describes a raid at her home in Texas where officers searched her ...

LULAC condemns Paxton's election fraud raids as “ ...

The Texas Tribune

https://www.texastribune.org › 2024/08/23 › texas-ken-...

5 days ago — The group said that searches the attorney general's office carried out this week targeted at least six Latinos, including a Democrat running ...

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PAXTON SPOKE

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/state-attorney-general

As more and more detail emerges about the events in the nation's capital Wednesday, it becomes clearer that this was a planned revolt and that it was organized within the Republican establishment. So much so that the Republican Association of Attorneys General (RAGA)—the chief Republican law enforcement officers for their states—used its dark money group to help organize the mob. The Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF), a "nonprofit" set up by the RAGA, appears in a list of groups "Participating in the March to Save America" along with Stop the Steal, Turning Point Action, Tea Party Patriots, and others.

The RLDF sent out a robocall to activists saying: "The march to save America is tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the Ellipse in President's Park between E St. and Constitution Avenue on the south side of the White House, with doors opening at 7:00 a.m." So they're making sure everyone knows where to go. It gets worse. "At 1:00 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal. We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections." The call gives a web address, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, and concludes: "This call is paid for and authorized by the Rule of Law Defense Fund." Again, this is coming from state attorneys general, the people elected to uphold and enforce the rule of law.

RAGA's chair, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, insists he "unequivocally had no knowledge or involvement" in the robocall and "is working diligently to determine how this situation occurred and ensure that it does not happen again."

The executive director of RAGA, Adam Piper, had the gall to issue a statement saying that the RAGA and RLDF "had no involvement in the planning, sponsoring or the organization of Wednesday's event" despite the fact that they are listed on the website as an organizing entity of the event and they sent the goddamned robocall telling everyone where to go and what the agenda for the coup would be. So that's believable. He added: "No Republican AG authorized the staff's decision to amplify a colleague speaking at the event."So we had nothing to do with it, but if we had anything to do with it, it's the staff's fault.

Few are buying that load, particularly the Democratic Attorneys General Association. Co-Chairs Massachusetts AG Maura Healey and Nevada AG Aaron Ford released a scathing statement:

"The continued peddling of conspiracy theories and pandering to President Trump's dangerous lies by the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, and some current and former Republican Attorneys General has gone unchecked for too long. Current and former Republican AGs have been directly involved with efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, and now the party of so-called 'law and order' played a role in recruiting the domestic terrorists who breached the U.S. Capitol to attack Vice President Mike Pence for doing his Constitutionally-mandated job to certify the Electoral College.""RAGA, RLDF—and the Republican AGs who blindly take their support—have no legal or moral ground on which to stand here: the organization paid for robocalls to recruit attendees, it was listed as a sponsor of the event, its former Chair spoke at the rally that incited a mob, and former GOP AG Josh Hawley led the effort in Congress to undermine the election."

The DAGA is calling out every state Republican attorney general to "publicly distance themselves from the Republican Attorneys General Association and its leadership," and for every donor to the group, corporate or individual to "abstain from further supporting an organization that makes such a mockery of the rule of law and our beloved democracy." Speaking of those corporate donors, they're a who's who of dark money, including "Koch Industries ($375k), Comcast Corporation ($200k), Walmart ($140k), Home Depot ($125k), Amazon ($100k), TikTok ($75k), 1-800 Contacts ($51k), Chevron ($50k), The National Rifle Association ($50k), Monsanto ($50k), Facebook ($50k), Fox Corporation ($50k), Uber ($50k), Coca Cola ($50k), Exxon ($50k), and Google($25k)."

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https://www.alreporter.com/2021/01/08/alabama-ag-says-hell-investigate-his-groups-role-in-deadly-riot/

no lnx

Alabama AG says he’ll investigate his group’s role in deadly riot

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said he’s unaware the group he leads was involved in the rally.

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omg voter suppression fraud BS

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/ken-paxton/

"FBI is investigating Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, AP report says" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The FBI is investigating Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Associated Press reported Tuesday evening, vetting allegations made by eight of Paxton's former top aides that he illegally used the power of his office to benefit a political donor.

Two unnamed sources told the AP that the bureau was examining claims made by the whistleblowers that Paxton broke the law by intervening several times in legal matters involvingNate Paul, a real estate investor and friend who donated $25,000 to Paxton's campaign in 2018.

On Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, eight aides in total told authorities that they believed Paxton had committed crimes as part of his relationship with Paul, citing bribery and abuse of office. Since then, four aides have been fired, three have resigned, and one has been placed on leave — sparking a whistleblower lawsuit.

Paxton, a Republican in his second term, has denied wrongdoing and said he will not resign his post, even as some in his own party call on him to do so and the state's top leaders call the allegations “concerning."

Earlier Tuesday, before the FBI investigation was made public, Paxton said in a statement that he knows “a little something about being falsely accused" and dismissed the allegations made by the whistleblowers as “overblown, based upon assumptions, and to a large degree misrepresent the facts."

Paxton has been under indictment for more than five years on securities fraud charges but has yet to stand trial. He has dismissed the charges as politically motivated and entered a not guilty plea.

Neither a campaign spokesperson for Paxton nor a defense attorney who is working on his long-running securities fraud case returned a request for comment about the FBI probe Tuesday. A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.

The full scope of Paxton's relationship with Paul remains unclear, though Paul has characterized it as friendly. In a deposition earlier this month, Paul revealed that he had employed a woman at Paxton's recommendation, though he said it was not a favor to Paxton. The woman had been involved in an extramarital affair with Paxton, according to two people who said the attorney general told them of the relationship in 2018.

Since the allegations surfaced last month, four examples have emerged of Paxton using his 4,000-employee agency to benefit Paul.

The whistleblowers allege Paxton tried to help Paul on a pair of open-records disputes, urging state employees to release documents that should have been confidential, and that Paxton rushed a legal opinion on foreclosure sales during the coronavirus pandemic, which helped Paul avoid such sales on several of his properties.

The attorney general's office — at Paxton's direction, the whistleblowers say — also took the highly unusual step of intervening in a lawsuit between Paul and an Austin-area charity.

And in September, Paxton hired an outside attorney to evaluate a complaint by Paul that he had been mistreated during an FBI raid on his property in 2019. Paxton's staff, the whistleblowers say, had already vetted the allegations and found them meritless, but Paxton continued to push the investigation

https://www.:{motherjones.com/environment/2016/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:06/exxon-ken-paxton-first-amendment/

Does Exxon Mobil have a constitutional right to sow doubt about climate science? That’s the subject of a high-stakes legal battle playing out between dozens of state attorneys general, members of Congress, corporate executives, and activists.

Last fall, investigations by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that the oil giant has decades of internal documents showing that its own scientists and executives knew fossil fuels contributed to climate change. Publicly, the company argued that the threats posed by global warming were far from certain, presumably as part of an effort to fight off regulation[doc]

...:{March 2000 Exxon Mobil ad about climate science. (Click here for a larger image.) :(style="box-sizing:inherit;font-weight:400"):}:Greenpeace

The revelations have sparked a barrage of legal actions. The attorney generals of Massachusetts, California, and New York launched investigations of Exxon, while Democratic AGs from other states have expressed their support. Some have drawn parallels to the tobacco industry’s deception on the dangers of smoking. Exxon has countered that the investigations are unconstitutional and has filed motions asking courts to block the subpoenas. “This…is about freedom of political speech,” the company recently argued in the Massachusetts case.

In March, US Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker served the company with a subpoenaseeking records that he claimed might prove that Exxon had defrauded consumers and the government by “misrepresenting its knowledge” that its fossil fuels contribute to climate change. Walker specifically pointed to a state racketeering statute that prohibits obtaining money by false pretenses. He demanded any documents detailing Exxon’s knowledge of climate change and its strategies to address it, including research studies, publications, statements, and communications with outside groups. Exxon responded by filing a lawsuit against Walker to block the subpoena. Exxon prevailed on Wednesday, when Walker agreed to withdraw the subpoena.

Exxon received some unusual assistance in its victory in the Virgin Islands case. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a tea-party-aligned Republican, went so far as to formally intervene—that is, he asked the court to allow the state of Texas to become a party to the case. Exxon, he wrote, had a First Amendment right to withhold the documents Walker was seeking. The brief was also signed by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (R). (Paxton and Strange also objected to Walker’s use of a private law firm to help conduct the investigation.)

In a press conference in May, Paxton had called Walker’s investigation “a fishing expedition of the worst kind” and said it represented “an effort to punish Exxon for daring to hold opinions on climate change that differ from theirs.”

“This is about the criminalization of speech and the criminalization of thought,” he said.

Two days later, Republican members of the House Science Committee sent letters to Walker and 16 Democratic attorneys general requesting documents related to the various Exxon investigations. They followed up with additional letters in June.

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texas assistant attorney general Nick Moutos lost his job following a Media Matters report on his threatening social media posts.

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omfg

aug 3

Inside the Project Veritas Plan to Steal the Election

James O’Keefe’s group is part of a sprawling campaign to delegitimize mail-in balloting in the fall—a campaign being led by the White House.

https://newrepublic.com/article/158622/inside-project-veritas-plan-steal-election

James O’Keefe had big plans for 2020. The founder of Project Veritas, the conspiratorial right-wing group that specializes in Fox News–friendly “stings” intended to expose supposed liberal bias and corruption in American society, was planning on getting married this past May. The wedding, to a public school teacher, was to be at an exclusive country club in upstate New York. The guest list was packed with Make America Great Again world cognoscenti: Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and his activist wife Ginni were all invited, as were several of O’Keefe’s most generous conservative donors, including Texas shale oil billionaire George Bishop and Bullpen Capital founder Paul Martino.

The wedding was, per an email blast, “postponed indefinitely” over the coronavirus, as the pandemic swept across the state this spring and early summer. Although O’Keefe himself declined to comment on this and many other details for this story, a well-placed frenemy is “90 percent sure they broke up.” In any event, while the pandemic may have derailed his personal life, it has only heightened the urgency of some of O’Keefe’s most lucratively funded dirty tricks.

For well over a year, Project Veritas has been secretly producing undercover stings designed to undermine the integrity of absentee and mail-in ballot counts—an endeavor codenamed “Diamond Dog,” according to documents we have obtained. Diamond Dog began as only one facet of Project Veritas’s 2020 rat-fucking strategy, but with the onset of the pandemic, which has made in-person voting a dicey proposition, it has since become one of the group’s top-line action items.

The shift reflects the Republican Party’s near-existential concerns about mail-in voting in November. Donald Trump has disingenuously railed against the practice numerous times over the past few months, betraying a deep anxiety. “Mail in ballots substantially increases the risk of crime and VOTER FRAUD!” he has tweeted. At other times he has claimed: “It will be the greatest Rigged Election in history”; “IT WILL ALSO LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY”; and “SCAM!” Last week, he went so far as to suggest that the election should be delayed, saying that because of “Universal Mail-in Voting,” the vote would be “INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT.”

The purpose of Diamond Dog, as one source close to the organization put it, is “literally to get Trump reelected.” This source, like other past and present Project Veritas employees who have talked to us for this article,expressed fear of reprisals from the group and would only speak under the condition of anonymity.

Last year, Project Veritas’s donor development team solicited big-ticket funders with a pitch deck—frequently tailored to a given patron’s pet ideological grievances and personal hang-ups—offering tantalizing details about the group’s undercover operations for the 2020 campaign cycle. One iteration of this Apple Keynote file was prepared for an ask meeting with a person who appears to beCognex Corporation founder Robert Shillman, a devoted funder of Islamophobic causes who was also one of O’Keefe’s would-be wedding guests. (Shillman ended up pledging to donate $50,000 to the group.) The slate of investigations in the “Dr. Bob” pitch included schemes to procure evidence of “illegal aliens voting,” mail-in ballot tampering at “nursing homes,” and “the sale of absentee ballots and voter profiles on the ‘Dark Web.’”

By the end of summer 2019, Diamond Dog had already grown to be a cross-country effort, based on internal Project Veritas memos, research notes, and other documents that we have obtained. InCalifornia and Texas, Project Veritas has tasked its operatives with unearthing supposed evidence of widespread mail-in ballot forgery. In both states, Project Veritas has worked toinfiltrate the groups of volunteers and paid canvassers who collect absentee and mail-in voter applications from low-income, elderly, and minority groups—a perfectly legal practice in most states that conservatives have tried to label as nefarious “ballot harvesting.”

In Texas, Project Veritas has also coordinated in secret with a local Republican operative named Aaron Harris, codenamed “Dragon,” currently chief of staff toRepublican congressman Lance Gooden. In turn, through the activist group he founded, Direct Action Texas, Harris has helped Project Veritas covertly strategize with a staffer working for the office of the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton is leading the state’s “election integrity initiative,” one of many Republican efforts nationwide to suppress the vote under the guise of rooting out the nearly non-existent threat of voter fraud.

Granted, Project Veritas, whose fervor to own the libs is matched only by its comical incompetence, is hardly likely to tip the election in Donald Trump’s favor all by itself. But it is at the vanguard of a larger underhanded approach that Republicans, starting at the very top, are taking to the 2020 cycle. If they want to win, they really have no other choice but to undermine the vote: Trump’s poll numbers are in the basement, and he appears constitutionally incapable of making appeals beyond his hardcore supporters on the right.

Republicans have all but admitted that this is their strategy. In coordination with the Republican National Committee and a raft of independent conservative groups, Trump has staked the success of his entire reelection campaign to a widespread voter suppression effort built on the pretext of preserving election integrity.The project, led by his campaign’s senior counsel Justin Clark, has worked to place operatives in at least 10 battleground states to challenge voter rolls and procedures. Between lawsuits and local advertising blitzes—all regularly relayed to Trump in the Oval Office—the effort could cost “well over $20 million,” as the RNC told The Washington Post.

Project Veritas has been among the on-the-ground organizations at the forefront of these efforts and has benefited substantially as a result. According to internal Project Veritas documents, the group’s fundraising total for 2019 leaped up to more than$13.44 million, $4.58 million more than their 2018 returns and the group’s largest reported annual revenue figure to date. The group may be comically incompetent, but in these cursed times, we all know how dangerous comical incompetence can be once enough money and clout line up behind it.

For an operation premised on conspiracy theories and fueled by raging paranoia, it will come as no surprise that the agents helping to spearhead Project Veritas’s election mischief are oddballs on the fringes of American political life. In one slide prepared for Dr. Bob, a 69-year-old Florida resident, a registered Republican named Joseph Vancheri notifies O’Keefe of his soon-to-be status as apoll worker in Broward County, likely for undercoverElection Day snooping on Project Veritas’s behalf. Vancheri, an ex-cop and die-hard Trump supporter, has routinely taken to Facebook to lash out against “all the Trump haters” and “SHEEP,” including “SHIFTY SCHIFF” and “the Idiot Warren,” using Trump’s preferred epithet “Pocohontas [sic].” A first-generation immigrant himself, Vancheri has nevertheless long harbored hardline views on immigration that echo his anxieties over the potential for illicit enfranchisement of foreigners.

In another slide, Project Veritas boasts of receiving a tip from a former broadcast meteorologist named Arch Kennedy, who found it suspicious that 300 people were all registered to vote at the address for Emory University’s Emory Muslim Student Association in Atlanta. (In all likelihood these voters, who constitute 2 percent of Emory’s total student population and .0028 percent of Georgia’s population, have their mail forwarded there.) In 2017, Arch organized one of the anti-Muslim group ACT! For America’s 28 nationwide “March Against Sharia” rallies. Held in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, it was a sparsely attended affair but still managed to include Republican Georgia State Senator Michael Williams, then mounting a doomed primary campaign for governor. [graf]

Iit’s unclear if either Vancheri or Kennedy’s offerings matured into full-fledged stings banked for the 2020 election. Neither they nor Project Veritas responded for comment, while the Project Veritas source who supplied the “Dr. Bob” pitch deck admitted that “a lot of it was kinda BS,” another example of the group “hyping themselves up to make themselves look better” and squeeze more money out of donors.Project Veritas went back to the well this weekend, soliciting donors in a mass email Saturday afternoon that promised a major ballot harvesting investigation that needs to be “completed as soon as possible.”

But other stings outlined in the Keynote file did materialize. The presentation, forexample, teased an inside man at Pinterestwho was “increasingly worried” about the platform’s “expanding community safety restrictions.” Sure enough, two months later, an ex-Pinterest Android app developer named Eric Cochran came forward with (later debunked) allegations in a series of Project Veritas and a *Newsweek*op-ed claiming that the platform was censoring anti-abortion Christian advertisers. The pitch deck also promised an exposé from a “CNN Insider” named Cary Poarch, a bombshell that fizzled in October 2019 when Poarch’s hidden recordings, taken while working as a freelance satellite truck operator for the news network, failed to expose more than the personal opinions of a few random employees.

Well before the pandemic drew national attention to mail-in voting, these documents show a discernible focus on “ballot harvesting” as part of the larger Republican effort to paint voting by mail as a threat to democracy. The concern stems from the party’s entrenched belief that, as Trump has tweeted, vote-by-mail “doesn’t work out well for Republicans,” since it often helps low-income people and minorities.

By late August 2019, the “Story Objective” for Diamond Dog had expanded, per one internal meeting document, to exposing “corruption within CA ballot harvesting companies and other states (TX) based on intel gains.” A Project Veritas undercover operative codenamed “Magnum” had been busy “attending local Democratic events in CA to find discussions of harvesting.” Another operative codenamed “GDog” was creating anentrapment scheme by posting “ads online looking for people to join his ballot harvesting.”

Texas has been a major theater for Project Veritas’s Diamond Dog operations, in no small measure because raw demographics have been threatening to turn the state blue for years. The sense of crisis comes from the state GOP’s failure to bring Latinos into their voting bloc. The legacy of such botched strategizing has been an assault on the state’s Latino electorate itself, with right-wing officials and political operatives raising suspicions about their very legitimacy as legal participants in the voting process.

Aaron Harris, a son of white evangelical missionaries who picked up Portuguese while growing up in Brazil and went on to become fluent in Spanish, has been relentlessly stoking paranoia over mail-in ballots since his first failed foray as a paid political consultant in 2014. Despite a sizable war chest from Dallas hotel magnate and Tea Party financier Monty Bennett, Harris’s candidates in the 2015 local election for the Tarrant Regional Water District lost. He quickly became fixated on the idea that thousands of forged mail-in ballot applications had been responsible for their defeat.

Unlike some Project Veritas associates, Harris has already managed to stir up some public alarm about alleged balloting fraud in cooperation with elected officials from the Republican Party. He has made repeated open records requests for “applications for ballot by mail” and copies of signed “ballot carrier envelopes” in Tarrant County and elsewhere in Texas, eyeballing the signatures on each for signs of fraud. (Emily J. Will, the board-certified forensic document examiner who tried to warn 60 Minutes about the dubious provenance of President George W. Bush’s supposedly doctored Air National Guard records in 2004, told us that a non-expert like Harris couldn’t be relied upon to discern a forged signature.)

In 2016, Harris sent the fruits of that labor to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, leading to four conspicuously timed indictments two years later on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections. Paxton described the four Hispanic women, paid canvassers soliciting mail-in ballot applications door-to-door, as an “organized voter fraud ring.” He named (but did not charge) a former local Democratic Party leader, Stuart Clegg, as the ringleader in the court filings.

That case, which is still ongoing, reveals the ways in which the official GOP subtly coordinates with its army of right-wing irregulars in the field. Paxton stridently enforces one of the strictest voter I.D. laws in the nation, while Harris and his political allies at Direct Action Texas and Empower Texans work to independently legitimize the attorney general’s partisan vendettas. Harris and local Republican lawyer Alex Kim, for example, inserted themselves into the prosecution’s caseby independently visiting one of the charged canvassers in prison, seemingly on their own initiative, in an effort to coerce the woman into flipping on Clegg.(A month after helping Harris sneak into the Tarrant County Jail to harass the canvasser, Kim won a local race to preside over the entire county as a judge for Texas’s 323rd District Court.)

Paxton’s office has often pursued these voter fraud cases through a prosecutorial diversion program, allowing them to juke their stats with “de minimis” cases without ever having to prove their arguments in open court or subject their methods to independent review. Their biggest confirmed conviction to date: sending a 37-year-old Mexican citizen and mother of four, Rosa Maria Ortega, to prison for eight years for the high crime of being confused that her status as a legal resident in Texas did not actually confer unto her the voting privileges of full United States citizenship. Ortega voted in five elections between 2004 and her 2017 sentencing, casting ballots for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012—and, tragically, for Ken Paxton himself in the 2014 Texas attorney general’s race.

All signs point toward Paxton getting even more aggressive in 2020, thanks to a wrecked-up and paralyzed response to the pandemic by both Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Republicans are nervous that even blood-red Texas might be in play come November. Last April, Paxton threatened felony charges for anyone who requests or advocates for mail-in ballots “based solely on fear of contracting Covid-19”—a move that was upheld by the Texas Supreme Court in May, then by the Trump-stacked U.S. Supreme Court in June. It’s now sure to set the stage for many of the alleged mail-in schemes that Project Veritas will purport to expose later this year.

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One local Project Veritas operative assigned to coordinate with Aaron Harris in Texas is also a former undercover volunteer: Cassandra Spencer, codenamed “Foxtrot” and sometimes “Foxtrot Smith” internally. In 2017, Spencer became O’Keefe’s “Facebook Insider” after leaving a public information officer post with the Pflugerville, Texas, police department to join Facebook’s contingent workforce operations at BCForward in Austin as a social media content moderator.

Spencer has positioned herself at the extremely online intersection of gaming culture and the alt-right. She has described herself as a “Proud Boy’s Girl” on Medium and attended “Austin’s premier anime convention” IKKiCON in Final Fantasy X cosplay. She traveled to Washington, D.C., for the inaugural DeploraBall and operates her own Twitch stream, which she dubbed “a First Amendment zone” for her conservative followers, “not like many others.”For the 2020 Democratic primary in Iowa, Spencer posed as a volunteer for presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as part of a Project Veritas sting then-codenamed “Gold Mine."

[graf doc]

al?ready staked out on the Texas ballot-harvesting vanguard, Aaron Harris “met with Foxtrot” in person and “gave her a lead with someone to follow,” per internal Project Veritas research notes. As Diamond Dog progressed, Harris’s ties to Project Veritas deepened to include longtime employee and recruiting director Spencer Meads, codenamed “Brady,” and possibly an undercover journalist (UCJ) codenamed “Peter Pan.” Project Veritas’s expanding pool of Texas sources was meant to be a state secret, but the document offered a huge clue about who might be involved in an all-caps and highlighted portion that read: “CANNOT MENTION ATTORNEY GENERAL.” In the same document, after listing a series of major metropolitan areas in Texas as potential sites for their “ballot harvesting” investigation,a question is proposed: “Where does the AG’s guy suggest they go?”

When pressed for comment on his apparent role in facilitating communications between the Texas attorney general’s office and Project Veritas, Harris responded via his congressional email, “Do not contact me about my previous employment on official channels. Learn to be competent at your job.” After it was pointed out to Harris that the internal Project Veritas documents were sourced in the early fall of 2019, approximately 10 months after he became Congressman Gooden’s chief of staff, Harris became belligerent. To questions reiterated via personal text message, he responded, “I’ve asked you to stop harassing me and you want to argue about it? You are an idiot. You just keep proving it.”

Spencer did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Only two principal targets, old Harris foes, were mentioned by name in the Project Veritas strategy document: Texas-based personal injury attorney Domingo Garcia, a former state representative and the president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC; and the Harvest Project Food Rescue of Dallas, a community group that Harris seems to believe is an insidious front through which the state’s left-wing operatives entice immigrant communities, with the lure of unsold fresh produce donated by local distributors, into filling out their own mail-in ballots and thus enfranchising themselves. (“I wake up usually at 4:30 in the morning, I have to go pick up the food by six,” Harvest Project co-founder Danaë Gutiérrez-Martínez said when asked about Harris’s allegations. “I don’t get home ’til eight at night, nine at night, sometimes, to get up the next day and do it again, especially right now with everything that’s happening. You know, I must be Superwoman if I have time to do anything else.”)

A long-since-ousted co-founder of the Harvest Project, Jose Barrientos was very publicly implicated in a mail-in ballot forgery scheme in 2017. But Paxton and the local district attorney ultimately indicted someone else entirely, 27-year-old Miguel Hernandez, for the felony offense. After 180 days stewing in jail, Hernandez was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor with the understanding that his sentence would be limited to time served.

The beef between Harris’s groups and LULAC has been considerably more fraught. In the fall of 2016, Garcia publicly offered a $25,000 reward, funded through LULAC, for any information leading to the conviction of individuals “trying to intimidate a senior in Fort Worth or anywhere in Texas.” The target of their bounty was pretty clear, teed-up as it was by a Texas state representative, Ramón Romero, who had called out Harris by name for his door-to-door inquisition of seniors in Fort Worth’s predominantly Hispanic north side. Later at that same press conference, a related community service nonprofit, the United Hispanic Council of Tarrant County, announced that it had filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice against Harris’s Direct Action Texas for creating “an atmosphere of fear and intimidation” in local Hispanic neighborhoods.

In January 2019, LULAC filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Paxton and the secretary of state in Texas, David Whitley, accusing them both of violating the Voting Rights Act in their haphazard attempt to purge the state’s voter rolls of non-citizens.

Whitley’s offices would quietly walk back their initial list of 95,000 suspicious voters, many of whom were discovered to be, in fact, naturalized citizens. Shortly thereafter, San Antonio federal district court Judge Fred Biery put a stop to the purge, declaring that state Republicans were trying “to ferret the infinitesimal needles out of the haystack of 15 million Texas voters.” Harris, for his part, was unrepentant, telling the*Texas Observer*, “We are changing the entire discussion on voter fraud in Texas.” He was not wrong. While Harris is now planning to run for a House seat himself, his tireless efforts there have laid the groundwork for Project Veritas and its GOP partners this election season.

---

When mainstream Americans think about James O’Keefe, if they think about James O’Keefe at all, it’s usually in reference to his most hilarious failures: ruining his own sting on George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by leaving a self-incriminating voicemail; failing to lure a CNN reporter onto his yacht for a detailed “faux seducing” prank; revealing his unseemly ties to the billionaire mercenary Erik Prince by posting his own vanity spy training photos on social media. If Diamond Dog follows the Project Veritas playbook, it will likely focus on goosing a few unguarded comments out of canvassers and other volunteers in the hope of netting an inflammatory sound bite or two.

A modest, practically harmless October Surprise. But it’s typically down ballot where the average Project Veritas video tends to have its most pernicious effects. Less well known than O’Keefe’s blunders on the national stage are the numerous documented instances in which his stings have been cited to justify new and more onerous voter I.D. laws or other election integrity legislation in state legislatures across the country.

In April 2012, Chris McDaniel, then Mississippi’s Senate elections committee chairman, cited a Project Veritas voter fraud video as evidence justifying the passage of the state’s “photo identification requirement” bill⁠, which the state’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant signed that May. Despite legal challenges, this law is still on the books today.

Also that year, a Republican Minnesota state representative, Steve Drazkowski, praised a locally shot O’Keefe video—in which Project Veritas undercover operatives requested ballot applications for their friends “Timothy Tebow and Thomas Brady”—during a floor debate for his party’s own draconian voter I.D. bill. While Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a strict version of that voter I.D. legislation, and Minnesota voters backed his decision in a ballot initiative later that year, the state’s Republican Party still plans to revisit the issue again this year. (“We have had a number of studies that have been completed, there’s a lot of new data on this topic, and there are court cases that have been decided,” as Minnesota GOP State Senator Scott Newman ominously put it, “none of which we had in 2012.”)

O’Keefe’s “Primary of the Living Dead” stunts during the and primaries in 2012—in which his operatives requested but crucially did not actually attempt to use, the ballots of deceased primary voters—aided the passage of stringent voter I.D. laws in those states. After New Hampshire enacted a law in 2018 tightening the state’s voting statutes, partly in response to a new series of Project Veritas videos, Democratic legislators made repeated attempts to repeal them, only to be thwarted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu’s veto.

O’Keefe’s wealthy donors surely remember these and other victories in vivid detail, in no small measure because they are reiterated tirelessly during O’Keefe’s paid speaking engagements and fundraising conclaves. Among Project Veritas’s 2019 contributors were several wealthy political groups, charitable foundations, and conservative billionaires with apparent interests in the outcome of Diamond Dog.

From California, a donation of at least $10,000 from a pledged $100,000 came to Veritas from Susan Groff, president of the Los Angeles-area construction equipment rental company Northwest Excavating. A prolific Republican donor along with her husband Howard, both Groffs were praised as “good friends, entrepreneurs and patriots” in a loving tribute entered into the Congressional Record by their longtime beneficiary, former GOP House Rep. Elton Gallegly.(Another $50,000 came into Project Veritas from a donor listed only as “Arnott”; the Orange County-based investment guru Robert D. Arnott, a Koch network ally and prolific Republican donor, denied responsibility when reached via email.)

In Texas, another $50,000 was passed on to Project Veritas from the Texas Free Market Fund through the group Donors Trust, the dark money “donor-advised fund” that has helped make contributions from the Kochs, the DeVos family, and others untraceable in future IRS filings. The charitable foundation of late Texas oilman Ken W. “Stinky” Davis, based like Project Veritas ally Aaron Harris in Tarrant County, also kicked in $5,000 to the group, the latest in the foundation’s influential spending spree on Republican politics in the Lone Star State and across the country.

In Florida, another donation of $50,000 came to the group through Donors Trust, this time from the free market defenders at the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

There was also a whopping $261,000 donation from the “Smith Family.” Could it be the Smith family that has monopolized local network TV affiliates through Sinclair Broadcasting? Or is it Randall and Barbara Smith, Palm Beach residents whose vulture fund Alden Global Capital was once described by Joshua Benton, the founder of Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, as “the gelatinous cube scouring the news industry’s dungeon”? Neither Smith families responded to requests for clarification on this issue.

Many additional hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of contributions to Project Veritas were attributed solely to “DT” on the group’s quarterly financial meeting documents. The initials may refer to Donors Trust or to the constellation of corporate and (ostensibly) philanthropic organizations tied to President DonaldTrump himself. While Trump is a well-known past donor to Project Veritas—a framed photo of him and O’Keefe rests prominently on a bookshelf at Project Veritas headquarters in Mamaroneck, New York—many other donors were evidently so secret that they were listed simply as “anonymous” even on the group’s own internal documents.

---

Cash matters, but O’Keefe’s personal connectionsare where the depth and seamlessness of this coordination with the Republican Party become truly apparent. They also offer a glimpse into the vast network that has formed to suppress the vote this fall—a network years in the making, of which Project Veritas is but a humble node.

Take litigator William Consovoy, the legal point man on many of the conservative-funded election integrity cases pursued during the Trump era. He is, like O’Keefe, a New Jersey native with a long history in local Republican politics. A former law clerk for Clarence Thomas, Consovoy is also reportedly a friend of Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, whose nephew David Maxham has been a friend of O’Keefe’s since their undergraduate years at Rutgers. (Maxham, naturally, was also invited to O’Keefe’s wedding.)

This year, Leonard Leo has stepped aside from day-to-day management of the Federalist Society to run a new conservative donor group, CRC Advisors, that is pouring money into Consovoy’s legal challenges in key battleground states across the country. CRC has been steering money into something called the “Honest Elections Project,” a fictitious name filed in Virginia for Leo’s old group the Judicial Education Project,now officially called the 85 Fund. As The Guardian reported, 99 percent of the Judicial Education Project’s funding in 2018 was a single $7.8 million donation funneled through Donors Trust.guk?

With generous assistance from the Honest Elections Project and the RNC, Consovoy’s firm Consovoy McCarthy PLLC has recently brought cases against the re-enfranchising of felons in Florida and sued to block California’s plans to deliver absentee ballots to all of the state’s registered voters. Consovoy has contributed to related motions filed in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Texas, where Ken Paxton’s victory against mail-in voting in May earned praise from President Trump on Twitter.

If you strain to look beyond the lonely partisan kitsch of James O’Keefe’s bungled scams and harebrained hoaxes, it’s plain to see the march of a whole battalion of Diamond Dog operatives and lawyers turned loose on the integrity of the ballot in key battleground states.

Liz Farkas, a New York state–licensed private investigator, provided additional reporting and research for this article.

Matthew Phelan @CBMDP

Matthew Phelan has written for Chemical Engineering, New York, Jacobin, and Gawker, where he founded the conspiracy vertical Black Bag in 2014.

Jesse Hicks @jessehixxx

Jesse Hicks is a journalist whose work has appeared in Vice, Politico, Harper’s, and elsewhere.

The Soapbox, Politics, Election 2020, Donald Trump, Project Veritas, James O'Keefe, Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump Jr., Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, FOX News, Texas, California, Republican Party, Federalist Society, Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott, Aaron Harris, George Soros, Erik Prince, Voting Rights

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/republican-attorneys-general-go-to-war-for-trump/

For decades, the two partisan political organizations dedicated to electing attorneys general had an agreement not to attack the other side’s incumbent candidate. During President Donald Trump’s time in office, however, theRepublican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) has _{thrown that accord out the window}_, lurching further to the right year after year and weaponizing the partisan polarization gumming up the country’s political apparatus.

“Our friends on the other side and particularly donors, much earlier than Democratic donors, started to recognize the power of the office of the attorney general,” Sean Rankin, executive director of the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA), told Salon in 2018, as competition for the once-obscure elected office grew hot across the country.

“They saw this as a real opportunity todevelop the Republican bench, as well as derail those Democrats who had promising careers,” he said.

Spending escalated quickly on the Republican side. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, DAGA’s GOP counterpart, RAGA, raised $16 million in 2014 and nearly $27 million in 2016. In contrast, DAGA raised nearly $9 million in 2014 and nearly $10 million in 2016.

Attorneys general essentially have the final say in prosecutorial discretion, or which cases get taken to court, a fact understood by lobbyists. Industry groups have depended on help from AGs, includingthe National Rifle Association (NRA), which made a $700,000 donation to RAGA four weeks after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

After that donation, 24 out of 27 Republican AGs wrote Congress asking for a billto make concealed-carry federal law.

Now RAGA has turned its sights to Democrats, launching a new “_{Lawless Liberals}_” campaign last month, which parrots Trump’s belligerent race-baiting about the social justice protest movement sweeping the country. The campaign is an unsubtle effort to appeal to a unsubtle president, whose AG endorsements have provided critical support in previous elections.

The group’s most recent ad, however, appears to have nothing to do with attorneys general.

The — “Erasing History” — digitally wipes the faces of all four presidents off of Mount Rushmore one by one, while headlines show people calling for the removal of other monuments featuring their likenesses.

It also apparently has little to do with law enforcement. Of the video, RAGA executive director Adam Piper said: “‘Erasing History’ is a poignant reminder about the dangers of the current ‘cancel culture,’ the threat to our nation and the rule of law posed by anarchists and lawless liberals.”

_{RAGA bought airtime}_ for the ad in Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 3 and 4, for cable networks MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. This might seem like a strange use of funds, because there is no attorney general election in South Dakota this year. However, Trump will visit the area on those days to celebrate the Fourth of July at Mount Rushmore.

The president’s endorsements have _{proved critical before}_, such as with the election of Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron last year.

Cameron, however, has been taking heat for the handling of the investigation into the shooting death of EMT Breonna Taylor by Louisville police this March, which turned the city into one of the major hotbeds for social justice protests this June.

RAGA’s website exploits that unrest, featuring an animation of a car in flames for the banner imageand threats that Democratic AGs will dissolve police departments and destabilize law and order.

Ironically, Republican attorneys general have recently themselves run afoul of law and order.

In 2015, Texas AG Ken Paxton was indicted on _{felony securities charges}_. His trial has been pushed back numerous times since then, but while Paxton waited, _{RAGA appointed him as its chairman}_.

“The chief law enforcement officer has a primary responsibility to protect the people. I’m proud to stand with Ken and the rest of my colleagues in working to elect more Republican AGs who will protect our communities and stand for the rule of law,” RAGA vice chairman, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, said in the November 2018 announcement.

Hill, however, had been accused of groping four women at a bar nine months earlier, and that summer a bipartisan coalition of Indiana lawmakers _{called for his resignation}_.

Hill did not resign, and is in fact seeking re-election in November. His largest first-quarter contribution in 2020 came from the RAGA Action Fund, which _{donated $25,000 to his 2020 campaign}_.

In May, the Indiana State Supreme Court _{suspended Hill’s law license}_ in lieu of the groping allegations. RAGA gave him _{another $11,000 the next month}_.

Three days after receiving the contribution, Hill defended himself against the allegations at the Indiana Republican Convention.

“Like President Trump, I have faced accusations and investigations designed to destroy me politically,” he _{said}_. “Like President Trump, I’m a threat to Democrats and a radical liberal agenda. Both President Trump and I are wounded, some would say, and yes, we are both warriors with battle scars.”

Though Hill’s comments might come off as a stretch — Trump received a Selective Service deferment during the Vietnam War, exempting him from the draft because of alleged problems with bone spurs in his heels — they exemplify RAGA’s all-in merger with MAGA.

RAGA has inserted itself into the nominally independent judiciary, promoting what it calls _{its own “judicial farm team.”}_

It has also sought to restrict vote-by-mail — again citing Paxton — based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

[twt no lnx]

It has also sought to restrict vote-by-mail — again citing Paxton — based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

The group has also waded into the fight against the Affordable Care Act, attacking presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for “politicizing” the coronavirus pandemic. (Biden had written a letter castigating Trump for his “unconscionable” pursuit of a lawsuit “designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance” amid a national health emergency.)

“His letter to President Trump on the legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act is not only in poor taste but also uninformed. A federal court has already ruled that the ACA is unconstitutional. It is critical the Supreme Court finish its review,” wroteLouisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, RAGA’s chairman.

It was not the only time Landry waded into health care to advance Trump’s interests. In March he secured for his state 400,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine, the now-discredited COVID-19 treatment hawked for months by Trump.

RAGA has spent tens of thousands of dollars on dinners for chief law enforcement officers and their top donors at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. It also filed an unprecedented letter in support of Trump during his impeachment trial in the Senate and called on a Washington, D.C., district court judge to obey the Justice Department’s request and drop all charges against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

“It has become trendy in recent years for courts to weigh in on the wisdom of this administration’s policy decisions. Too often, that commentary comes in grandiose terms more appropriate for an op-ed than a judicial opinion,” the group said, urging the judge to dismiss the case “without irrelevant or personal comment.”

Sean Rankin of DAGA — RAGA’s Democratic counterpart — told Salon in a statement that “RAGA and this group of Republican AGs have quite a strategy: they’re trying to tear away affordable health care from millions of Americans, and they’re against voting by mail – both of these things in a pandemic. They’re against equal rights for women and LGBTQ people, and they don’t believe in science. They stay in lock-step with Trump’s missteps – and then are baffled by the fact that their incumbents are now vulnerable in red states …. I, for one, do not plan on interfering with my opponents while they continue to hurt themselves.”

FEC filings indicate that RAGA, for whatever reason, appears to have iced much of its direct spending in 2020, but it has dropped money into Push Digital, the company that produces the “Lawless Liberal’ videos. To see what kind of production values they’re getting, watch one here:lawless liberals vid

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/indicted-texas-attorney-general-sides-with-anti-gay-judge-instead-of-state-agency-in-legal-fight/

indicted Texas attorney general sides with anti-gay judge instead of state agency in legal fight

Gabe Ortiz / Daily Kos

get lnx

Indicted Texas attorney general sides with anti-gay judge instead of state agency in legal fight

Written by Gabe Ortiz / Daily Kos January 31, 2020

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is refusing to defend a state agency that’s being sued by a a bigoted justice of the peace who got pissed that she was disciplined for refusing to follow the law and marry same-sex couples. “We believe judges retain their right to religious liberty when they take the bench,” said Paxton’s spokesperson, Marc Rylander.

It’s not just that Paxton is camouflaging his own homophobia and lawlessness in claims of “religious liberty”; it’s that this shameless motherfucker is also doing it while he faces three securities fraud charges.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/19/1517425/-Indicted-TX-Attorney-General-knows-lawlessness-when-he-sees-it-and-Obama-s-crossed-the-line

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200117/criminal-case-against-paxton-still-inching-along

This upcoming summer will mark five years since Paxton was indicted for allegedly violating state securities laws, and for nearly five years now he and his legal team have apparently pulled every trick in the book to delay his trial. Prosecutors said that those tricks have included an alleged “campaign to taint potential jurors by maligning the prosecution and the case against him,” the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Prosecutors moved to have the trial take place in Houston, but Paxton, who could face as long as 99 years in prison, argued “that his case was improperly transferred to Houston by a judge who no longer had the authority to issue such a ruling,” the Statesman continued. Someone facing as serious charges and prison time as Paxton probably shouldn’t even be in office while doing so, yet Paxton not only refuses to budge—he’s gonna stay to buck his own state’s commission to continue his anti-LGBTQ agenda.

The office he’s refusing to defend, the Commission on Judicial Misconduct, had warned justice of the peace Dianne Hensley for “her yearslong refusal to marry gay couples while continuing to marry heterosexual couples,” NBC News said, with PinkNews reporting that Hensley had allegedly called gay marriage “offensive.” She then sued the commission for $100,000, PinkNews continued, “claiming that her rights have been infringed upon.”

In what’s surely just a coincidence, CBS Austin reports that the firm defending Hensley, First Liberty Institute, is led by Kelly Shackelford, who has “endorsed Paxton and contributed to a legal defense fund Paxton has used to fight off a four-year-old criminal indictment for securities fraud.” Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing at all.

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-wont-defend-state-agency-in-gay-marriage-case

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Michigan

The 2018 AG race in Michigan was another open contest between candidates with a stark contrast on energy policy. Republican candidate Tom Leonardran with explicit support for an aging Enbridge oil pipeline, while Democrat Dana Nessel pledged to shut it down in her first act as attorney general.

Enbridge did not donate to RAGA in the 2018 cycle, but ExxonMobil, with which it co-owns multiple pipelines, gave over $125,000. This year, Enbridge contributed $25,000 to RAGA.

RAGA spent at least $1.5 million backing Leonard and gave $6,800 to the Leonard campaign, but Nessel won the race. Under Nessel, Michigan has joined other Democratic states to challenge Trump initiatives including its Clean Power Plan replacement. She also withdrew the state from the Republican challenge to the Clean Power Plan and from a Murray Energy lawsuit against EPA clean air regulations, which the state had joined as a petitioner.

In the next AG race, in 2022, RAGA will very likely harness cash from its fossil fuel donors in an attempt to reinstate a pro-industry Republican.

Texas

In the Longhorn State, Attorney General Ken Paxton, RAGA's chair in 2019, ran for re-election against Democrat Justin Nelson in 2018. Like other Republican AGs seeking new terms, Paxton got major support from RAGA, which made $650,000 in direct donations to his campaign as well as $21,500 in in-kind contributions for research. Paxton won the race by 3.6 percent of the vote.

Paxton's RAGA biography boasts that he has sued the Obama administration 22 times. The suits include challenges to the Clean Power Plan, the EPA's "Regional Haze" rule, methane emission standards, and restrictions on coal mining near waterways.

This year, Paxton sued ExxonMobil over a fire at its chemical plant that injured 37 people, the fourth fire that has occured at the Bayton, Texas plant this year. But his lawsuit, filed at the state level, could upend two suits by the county in county court, putting Paxton in charge of the whole operation. Some, wary of his fossil fuel-friendly history, worry he might go easy on the oil giant.

10/18

Oliver points to RAGA (Repulican Attorneys General Association) and DAGA (Democratic Attorneys General Association), the partisan associations that “sound like twins from Dutch folklore that teach children right from wrong” and raise funds via somewhat questionable ties to corporations. Further, AGs belonging to one party have increasingly teamed up across states to sue the federal government (blocking actions such as the Medicaid expansion under the Obama Administration) and this has become a point of pride for some, such as Texas’ Greg Abbott (“I go into the office, I sue the federal government and then I go home”) and his successor, Ken Paxton, a man seriously outshone by his wife, the “pistol packin’ momma.”

Diving further into how Paxton’s conservative views have affected his work in office, and later on the surprising statistics of how few people actually vote for AG when confronted with the choice on a ballot, Oliver makes his case for awareness of these races.

“So please, before Nov. 6, just think about your AG race. You can do it, you’ve got nine days left,” said Oliver. “I know we’ve all been asked to think about a lot this year from Supreme Court nominations to gun control, to the energy of Pete Davidson’s penis—it’s been a lot and now I am adding research your state AG race to the list—but it is honestly worth it. If you do it, you’ll frankly be amazed at the kind of tidbits you may find.”

www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/06/exxon-ken-paxton-first-amendment

nat s

[doc]

Exxon received some unusual assistance in its victory in the Virgin Islands case. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a tea-party-aligned Republican, went so far as to formally intervene—that is, he asked the court to allow the state of Texas to become a party to the case. Exxon, he wrote, had a First Amendment right to withhold the documents Walker was seeking. The brief was also signed by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (R). (Paxton and Strange also objected to Walker’s use of a private law firm to help conduct the investigation.)

“This is about the criminalization of speech and the criminalization of thought,” he said.In a press conference in May, Paxton had called Walker’s investigation “a fishing expedition of the worst kind” and said it represented “an effort to punish Exxon for daring to hold opinions on climate change that differ from theirs.”

Two days later, Republican members of the House Science Committee sent lettersto Walker and 16 Democratic attorneys general requesting documents related to the various Exxon investigations. They followed up with additional letters in June.

On June 15, Paxton and 12 other GOP attorneys general signed a letter criticizing the Exxon investigations. The letter laid out a free-speech argument in stark terms, saying, “Actions indicating that one side of the climate change debate should fear prosecution chills speech in violation of a formerly bi-partisan First Amendment consensus.”

Exxon, which is headquartered in Texas and is a major employer in the state, did not respond to a request for comment. The company’s former vice president of public and government affairs, Kenneth P. Cohen, previously told the *New York Times*, “We unequivocally reject the allegations that Exxon Mobil has suppressed climate change research.”

Paxton’s involvement in the case alarmed some environmentalists, who note that attorneys general are charged with enforcing state laws and regulations. It’s unusual for a state to intervene in support of a company that is under investigation, said Stacey Geis, managing attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.

It’s as if Paxton were trying to act as Exxon’s lawyer, she said.

Paxton’s deputy Brantley Starr disputed that allegation.

“If we were intervening on behalf of someone, it would be the Constitution,” he said in a phone interview.

Michael McConnell, a Stanford law professor and senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, agreed that Paxton’s intervention was “highly unusual.” Nevertheless, he added in an email that Walker’s subpoena was “quite possibly unconstitutional.” Exxon, he said, has “a right to have a position on global warming.”

Other scholars and activists reject that argument. Naomi Ages, a project leader at environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, called the Virgin Islands investigation “legitimate” and said Paxton’s intervention was “unprecedented” and based on “pretty specious legal grounds.”

Robert Post, the dean of Yale Law School, argues that it is “irresponsible to invoke the First Amendment” to defend Exxon. “There are circumstances when scientific theories must remain open and subject to challenge, and there are circumstances when the government must act to protect the integrity of the market, even if it requires determining the truth or falsity of those theories,” wrote Post in a Washington Postop-ed last week. “Public debate must be protected, but fraud must also be suppressed.”

Starr counters that the Texas AG’s office was not claiming corporations can never be investigated for fraud, but rather that an investigation cannot be based on a public policy debate. “What we shouldn’t do is investigate public debate and say that there’s only one side of the public debate that we’re investigating,” he said.

Paxton has received nearly $1 million dollars in contributions from the oil and gas industry during his seven runs for public office, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. During a recent event at the conservativeHeritage Foundation, he warned that the investigation of Exxon could have resulted in job losses in his state, though he declined to provide a specific estimate of how many jobs were in jeopardy.

Meanwhile, Paxton is facing legal challenges of his own. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against him in April, alleging that he had recruited investors for a company without disclosing that he was receiving compensation in the form of stock in the company. This complaint followed three state criminal indictments on charges of securities fraud and failing to register as an investment adviser.

In a released by his campaign in May, Paxton called the charges “false” and “politically motivated.”

When asked for comment on the SEC investigation at the Heritage Foundation event, Paxton declined to answer.

On Thursday, Paxton released a statement hailing the withdrawal of Walker’s Exxon subpoena as a triumph for free speech.

“The so-called ‘investigation’ by Walker was a constitutionally improper attempt to suppress the freedom of speech based only on the content being communicated. In America, we have the freedom to disagree, and we do not legally prosecute people just because their opinion is different from ours.”

This article has been updated.

contrast:

Exxon Tries To Bury Climate Documents By Claiming First ...

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../exxon-first-amendment_us_571662c6e4b0060ccda46d6...

Apr 19, 2016 - Exxon's invocation of the First Amendment is fairly unusual for a ... But others have tried to defend the oil company's free speech rights on this ...

First Amendment Freedoms Must Be Protected | The Daily Caller

dailycaller.com/.../texas-is-fighting-back-against-the-activist-ags-dangerous-climate-su...

Jun 2, 2016 - A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas, in this ... Texas AG's Decision To Fight In Favor Of ExxonMobile's Constitutional Rights?

https://dailycaller.com/2016/06/02/texas-is-fighting-back-against-the-activist-ags-dangerous-climate-subpoena/

Ken PAXTON

TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL

June 02, 2016

While the debate over climate change has been, at times, contentious and even mean-spirited, it’s never been criminalized.

Until now.

Recently, Claude Earl Walker, the attorney general for the U.S. Virgin Islands, issued a criminal subpoena to ExxonMobil in Texas. What crime are they investigating? Thoughts. Walker is investigating Exxon’s expressed doubts on the issue of climate change and those who they communicated with about this questionable subject.

Now, anyone who has expressed such thoughts has increasingly found themselves under vocal assault from politicians, federal funding agencies, universities, professional societies, and journalists. But this may be the most shocking assault yet. A government official is actually using his prosecutorial power to attack a company for nothing more than expressing an opinion that’s unpopular with the environmental left.

That is why my office and the Alabama Attorney General have joined ExxonMobil in an effort to have this abusive and unconstitutional subpoena thrown out of court.

This is the strongest demonstration yet of the almost-religious zeal with which climate change proponents attack those with whom they disagree, and how little the First Amendment freedoms mean to people with such an agenda. During a press conference announcing the investigation, Walker – along with a coalition of other environmentally activist AGs– said that his office has launched an investigation into a company whose “product is destroying the earth.”

Those words reveal the true motive behind this effort. Walker and the environmental activists he is beholden to are not neutral parties investigating possible wrongdoing. They are zealots on the hunt for a trophy.

Today, Walker is targeting ExxonMobil. But the coalition of activist Attorneys General that are operating alongside him suggests that the campaign for absolute orthodoxy on climate change could go national at any time, and who knows who could be next.

Unlike being criticized in the media or on college campuses, this isn’t merely an unfair annoyance. Companies being targeted will have to spend substantial financial resources to defend themselves, which serves as a massive de facto “fine” before any wrongdoing is even demonstrated. And that’s money that could otherwise go toward paying higher wages, hiring more employees, and investing more in the company.

In the subpoena, Walker demands four decades worth of ExxonMobil records, which is the very definition of a massive fishing expedition. They’re hoping to bring in as much information as possible so they can pore over it later in the hopes of finding somebody at ExxonMobil who did something wrong at some point in the company’s history — perhaps as far back as the Ford Administration.

Walker has floated a “theory” that the company’s speech somehow amounted to a criminal racketeering violation. In reality, this is an obvious attempt to criminalize views on one side of a debate, in flagrant disregard of the First Amendment.

Once we cross the line into prosecuting people for what they believe, we will have abandoned one of America’s founding principles. Our First Amendment freedoms must be protected.

===

Does Exxon Have a Constitutional Right to Deny Climate Change ...

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/.../exxon-ken-paxton-first-amendme...

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:{Jun 30, 2016 - Texas :{Attorney General:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Ken :{Paxton:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: took :{Exxon's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: side in the company's ... In March, US Virgin Islands :{Attorney General Claude Walker:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: served the ... The brief was also signed by :{Alabama Attorney General:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Luther Strange (R).:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-what-we-know-about-the-texas-voter-citizen-checks-and-its-not-what-donald-trump-claimed/

Alexa Ura, The Texas Tribune

Jan. 25, 2019

“Texas officials flag tens of thousands of voters for citizenship checks”was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The Texas secretary of state’s office announced Friday it would send local election officials a list of 95,000 registered voters who the state says counties should consider checking to see whether they are U.S. citizens and, therefore, legally eligible to vote.

In an advisory released Friday afternoon, the office said it was flagging individuals who had provided the Texas Department of Public Safety with some form of documentation — including a work visa or a green card — that showed they were not a citizen when they were obtaining a driver’s license or an ID card. Among the individuals flagged, about 58,000 individuals cast a ballot in one or more elections from 1996 to 2018, the secretary of state’s office said.

It’s unclear exactly how many of those individuals are not actually U.S. citizens and whether that number will be available in the future. In its notice to counties, the secretary of state’s office said the names should be considered “WEAK” matches, using all capital letters for emphasis.

That means counties may now choose to investigate the eligibility of the individuals who were flagged, which would require them to send a notice asking for proof of citizenship within 30 days, or take no action. By law, the counties aren’t allowed to automatically revoke a voter’s registration without sending out such a notice.

It’s possible that individuals flagged by the state — who provided DPS with documentation that indicated they were authorized to be in the country — could have become naturalized citizens since they obtained their driver’s license or ID card. A spokesman for the secretary of state said officials are “very confident” that the data received from DPS is “current.”

In announcing the review of the rolls, Secretary of State David Whitley — who was appointed to the post last month after serving as deputy chief of staff to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — immediately handed the data over to the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who said his office will “spare no effort in assisting with these troubling cases.”

But without additional verification, you can’t say these individuals all engaged in illegal voting, said Chris Davis, the head of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators.

“People get naturalized,” Davis said. “It’s entirely too early to say that.”

The numbers were released just a few weeks into a legislative session during which lawmakers may take up proposals to require some form of citizenship verification before registering to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 rejected states’ efforts to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. Other federal courts have knocked down more recent efforts.

“Integrity and efficiency of elections in Texas require accuracy of our state’s voter rolls, and my office is committed to using all available tools under the law to maintain an accurate list of registered voters,” Whitley said in a statement.

But Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director for the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the announcement echoed efforts around the country to remove eligible voters from the rolls.

“The secretary’s actions threaten to result in tens of thousands of eligible voters being removed from the roles, including those with the least resources to comply with the demand to show papers,” Stevens said.

In a state where about 15.8 million Texans are registered to vote, the AG’s office has recently pursued a small number of convictions of illegal voting by non-citizens. Past reviews of the voter rolls by other states ultimately found that only a small number of the thousands of non-citizens they initially flagged had actually voted. For years, researchers have found that voter fraud is rare and claims that non-citizens are voting in large numbers have not been substantiated.

Read related Tribune coverage

https://www.ecowatch.com/texas-plastic-bag-ban-2580367535.html

Texas Supreme Court Rules Cities Cannot Ban Plastic Bags

The Texas Supreme Court struck down the city of Laredo's plastic bag ban—a decision that will likely overturn similar bans in about a dozen other cities, including Austin, Fort Stockton and Port Aransas.

The court ruled Friday that only the state has the authority to regulate solid waste disposal in Texas. In the 19-page opinion, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht wrote that the Texas Constitution prohibits city ordinances from conflicting with state law.

"Both sides of the debate ... assert public-policy arguments raising economic, environmental and uniformity concerns," Hecht said. "We must take statutes as they are written, and the one before us is written quite clearly. Its limitation on local control encompasses the ordinance."

The Laredo Merchants Association sued the city in March 2015 to overturn the ordinance, arguing that state law pre-empts the bag ban. The move was supported by 20 state senators and representatives, all Republicans, that filed an amicus brief in support of the merchants for an earlier appeal of the case.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also backed the merchants. A press release from his office states that the ruling "effectively invalidates unlawful bag bans across Texas."

"I hope that Laredo, Austin, and any other jurisdictions that have enacted illegal bag bans will take note and voluntarily bring their ordinances into compliance with state law," Paxton said in a statement. "Should they decline to do so, I expect the ruling will be used to invalidate any other illegal bag bans statewide."

In a statement after today's ruling, Laredo mayor Pete Saenz called the decision a "major blow to all Texans who want to see a cleaner, healthier and more beautiful state."

He said that banning plastic bags helped protect the environment, reduced clean-up costs and "beautified" the city. He also said that Laredoans quickly adapted to bringing their own bags to stores.

"Single use plastic bags have contributed to flooding, mosquitoes, costly clean up for local governments, and disruption of sensitive ecosystems and wildlife," Saenz said. "Laredo's ordinance helped reduce clean up and repair costs to our storm water, sewage and water utilities systems. It also beautified our city and helped wildlife with it."

He encouraged residents and all Texans to continue bringing reusable bags, straws, cups and containers to stores.

Environmental groups were disappointed by the court's decision.

"Plastic pollution is harming wildlife, marring the beauty of our cities, and threatening our health, safety and economy," said Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger in a statement. "Nothing we use for five minutes should pollute our environment for hundreds of years. We call on major retailers, like HEB and Walmart, to continue observing the ban in these cities and ask the Legislature to remove the preemption statute."

---

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/08/how_republicans_are_extorting_trump_into_killing_daca.html

...Republicans criticized DACA as executive overreach and successfully sued to block Obama from expanding the program to the undocumented parents of lawful residents. The 2016 Republican Party platform slammed DACA as “unlawful amnest[y],” and Trump promised to end it. But his Department of Homeland Security has continued to issue and renew DACA permits even as its law enforcement wing occasionally targets DACA recipients for deportation. In June, DHS announced that DACA would remain in effect for the time being.

Shortly thereafter, a coalition of Republicans sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions an ultimatum: Kill DACA by Sept. 5 or we’ll take you to court. The letter argued that DACA is illegal and that the signatories were prepared to sue the Trump administration for allowing its continuation. Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter signed the letter, as did the GOP attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Idaho, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton spearheaded the effort.

Indicted Fraudster Ken Paxton is a Little Fuzzy on Free Speech

Texas attorney general and Dukes of Hazard villain Ken Paxton is not pleased with former deputy chief of consumer protection John Owens. Ownes recently spoke to reporters and disclosed that a state investigation ofTrump University was shut down for political reasons by then-attorney general and current Governor Greg Abbott.

We don't necessarily have to take Owens' word for it. Greg Abbott's campaign received a $35,000 donation from Donald Trump shortly after Abbott dropped the investigation. That's not exactly a slam-dunk, but it certainly lends credence to the accusation.

The Abbott administration could have simply denied the accusations and moved on, but Attorney General Ken Paxton has gone a step further by sending a cease and desist letter to John Owens.

In a letter dated Friday, First Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Mateer asks John Owens to "immediately cease and desist from disclosing any privileged or confidential information" from his time in the office, which ended when he retired in 2011. [...]

"While everyone has First Amendment rights to free speech, the law strictly prohibits attorneys from releasing confidential and privileged information."

John Ownes has denied that he has released anything confidential or privileged and, ironically, Paxton's claim that Owens has released confidential information makes his accusation against Abbott seem even more credible.

Why would Paxton try to use the power of the state to silence a critic if the critic is wrong? If there's nothing to see here, why try to claim Owens has disclosed privileged information? If Owens simply made it up, how could it be privileged?

It wouldn't exactly be a big surprise if Paxton didn't think this all the way through.

As you know, Attorney General Ken Paxton is a little unsure how the law works. Paxton is currently facing criminal and civil charges for fraud. Paxton did not disclose that he was paid to lobby for a fraudulent business while he was a state representative.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's campaign also received a large $25,000 donation from Trump after dropping an investigation of Trump University.

ref

...

s scores of students complained that Trump University was a ripoff, the Better Business Bureau in 2010 gave the school a D-minus, its second-lowest grade. State regulators also began to take notice.

Besides the probe that led to Attorney General Schneiderman's suit in New York, the office of then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, opened a civil investigation of "possibly deceptive trade practices." Abbott's probe was quietly dropped in 2010 when Trump University agreed to end its operations in Texas. Trump subsequently donated $35,000 to Abbott's successful gubernatorial campaign, according to records.

A spokesman for Abbott, now Texas governor, declined to comment.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly considered joining with Schneiderman in a multi-state suit against Trump University. Three days after Bondi's spokeswoman was quoted in local media reports as saying the office was reviewing the New York lawsuit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation made a $25,000 contribution to a political fundraising committee supporting Bondi's re-election campaign. Bondi, a Republican, soon dropped her investigation, citing insufficient grounds to proceed....

//Raga

By Matt Corley

May 12, 2016

The Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) is making news these days as the main conservative group seeking to block President Obama’s ability to seat a replacement on the Supreme Court for late Justice Antonin Scalia. The nonprofit group, which does not disclose its donors, is spending millions on ads attacking nominee Merrick Garland and pressuring Republican senators to hold the line against even holding a hearing on his nomination.

Though it is much better known for its focus on the judiciary, JCN has also long-cared about electing conservative attorney generals who can be “key leaders in the battle for limited, constitutional government.” Since 2014, JCN has contributed at least $2.445 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which is dedicated to “electing Republicans to the Office of State Attorney General.” In 2014, the group also directly intervened in attorneys general races, running ads in Republican attorney general primaries in Nebraska and Arkansas.

JCN also has sought to influence the slate of state attorneys general by working with other groups to run issue ads in attorney general elections, particularly Republican primaries. Between July 2013 and June 2014, for instance, JCN gave $250,000 to a nonprofit called the American Dream Initiative (ADI), which went on to spend at least $**532,000 to**run ads attacking then-Texas attorney general candidate Ken Paxton’s ethics just days before a runoff election in the 2014 Republican primary. JCN’s funding covered nearly half of ADI’s expenses for the year. JCN also reported on its most recent tax form giving $1.35 million to the American Future Fund, a notorious dark money nonprofit that ran ads alongside JCN in Arkansas’ 2014 Republican attorney general primary. Another group, the Rule of Law Project, got $100,000 from JCN in 2014 and ran nearly $190,000 worth of ads boosting the Republican nominee for attorney general in Wisconsin while attacking the Democratic nominee.

6/16 fuel fix bs

A campaign by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to end the investigation into ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies over false statements on climate change is gaining support among other state law enforcement officials.

Attorneys general from 13 states signed an open letter Wednesday, arguing that climate change is a public policy debate, not a criminal matter, and urging law enforcement officials in other states to “stop policing viewpoints.”

“We all understand the need for a healthy environment, but we represent a wide range of viewpoints regarding the extent to which man contributes to climate change and the costs and benefits of any proposed fix,” the letter reads. “Nevertheless, we agree on at least one thing—this is not a question for the courts.”

Attorneys general from Alabama, Michigan, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Carolina signed the letter.

Paxton made headlines last month when he and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange filed a motion seeking to block a subpoena by the U.S. Virgin Islands for ExxonMobil’s internal documents related to climate change. Paxton called the the probe a “a fishing expedition of the worst kind.”

AG Coalition Resp Letter 2016-06-15

===

late to team red?

he top law enforcement officials of Texas and Alabama are jumping in on the side of ExxonMobil, objecting to a racketeering investigation of the oil giant by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The attorneys general of Texas and Alabama filed notice that they intend to intervene in the case, contending that Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker is abusing his authority. According to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, Walker overstepped his bounds in opening the investigation that has no legal basis.

In a filing in Texas state court where Exxon sued Walker a month ago, Paxton and Strange said they agreed with Exxon's argument that the investigation violates the company's Constitutional rights. They also said Exxon is correct in arguing that the Virgin Islands' hiring of an outside law firm to handle the probe on a contingency-fee basis is an unconstitutional delegation of prosecutorial power.

"We agree with ExxonMobil that serious jurisdictional concerns exist, but to protect the fundamental right of impartiality in criminal and quasi-criminal investigations, we intervene," saidthe plea filed by the attorneys general for Texas and Alabama. Exxon's corporate headquarters is in Texas.

In a statement, Walker said investigating fraud is something that attorneys general do every day and that Exxon may be continuing to misrepresent the risks of climate change to investors.

"I have no substantive comment on the effort by the Texas and Alabama Attorney Generals' effort to intervene in ExxonMobil's lawsuit, which seeks to justify its refusal to cooperate with our investigation," Walker said in the statement.

"I seek to protect consumers and investors in the Virgin Islands; they wish to lend a hand to ExxonMobil, which is their choice."

Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia University, said it is difficult to predict the weight that Paxton and Strange's action will carry.

"It is more for appearances—what we lawyers call atmospherics—than for substance," he said. "This is more a reflection of the politics of the states. This is a political and ideological brawl being carried out in judicial context."

Walker subpoenaed a wide swath of Exxon records covering almost four decades, citing suspicion that Exxon's statements on climate change may have violated the territory's anti-racketeering law and defrauded the government and consumers of the islands.

Virgin Islands authorities are relying on its "Baby RICO" statute, one of a class of racketeering laws adopted by more than two dozen states and territories after Congress passed the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The laws were intended to give officials stronger weapons for prosecuting organized crime.

Walker engaged the Washington, D.C., law firm of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll to handle the case. Cohen Milstein and Linda Singer, the firm's lead attorney in the case, were named as co-defendants in the Exxon suit against Walker. Neither Singer, Paxton's office, nor Exxon responded to requests for comment.

Strange said he decided to jump into the fray on Exxon's side because he thinks Walker is conducting a "witch hunt."

"The Attorney General of the Virgin Islands, an American Territory, is abusing the power of his government office to punish and intimidate a company for its climate change views which run counter to that of his own," Strange said in a statement.

"This is more than just a free speech case," Strange said. "It is a battle over whether a government official has a right to launch a criminal investigation against anyone who doesn't share his radical views."

Gerrard said the intervention of the two state attorneys general lends some credibility to Exxon's argument.

"It shows it is not a corporation acting alone in terms of protesting," Gerrard said. "Exxon now has two sovereign states agreeing with them."

Walker is part of a coalition of Democratic attorneys general organized by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. They vowed to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their conduct on climate change. The first sentence of Paxton and Strange's motion to intervene cites a comment Walker made at the announcement of the coalition. Paxton and Strange are both Republicans.

Exxon sued in Texas state court last month to block Walker's subpoena for documents on climate change. Exxon argues the subpoena is invalid because it seeks records beyond the five-year statute of limitations of the territory's Baby RICO law, and that it violates the company's constitutional rights and "constitutes an abuse of process, in violation of common law."

In their filing, Paxton and Strange said they support Exxon's contention that the investigation is politically motivated.

"General Walker's investigation appears to be driven by ideology, and not law, as demonstrated not only by his collusion with Cohen Milstein, but also by his request for almost four decades worth of material from a company with no business operations, employees, or assets in the Virgin Islands," they said.

Paxton and Strange said that by hiring an outside law firm to handle the investigation, the Virgin Islands case is driven more by the firm's desire to collect contingency fees based on civil settlements rather than following the law and finding the truth.

"Contingency fee arrangements cut against the duty of impartiality by giving the attorney that represents the government a financial stake in the outcome," according to the intervention notice. "Thus, the use of contingency fees is highly suspect."

Walker defended the use of outside lawyers, saying it levels the playing field and has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"ExxonMobil's annual revenue is about five times the gross domestic product of the Virgin Islands," he said. "The use of outside counsel permits us to apply the law to even the largest corporations."

Intervention by the AGs will likely have few practical consequences, according to Robert Percival, director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland School of Law.

"It's political grandstanding on the parts of the AGs," Percival said.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/16052016/texas-alabama-attorneys-general-taking-exxon-side-objecting-climate-probe-virgin-islands

===

The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, prepared on Sunday to become the latest powerful state official booked on felony charges. But unlike when Governor Rick Perry smiled for his mugshot last year, Republicans are not rushing to Paxton’s defense.

A day after news broke that a grand jury had indicted Paxton on felony securities fraud charges, Governor Greg Abbott, Perry’s successor who was Texas attorney general for 12 years, remained silent. So did GOP presidential candidate and US senator Ted Cruz, who in 2014 praised Paxton, a like-minded Tea Party favourite.

Other Texas GOP leaders also kept to themselves about Paxton, who is expected to turn himself in on Monday near his home in suburban Dallas. Attorney Joe Kendall said in a brief statement late on Saturday that he and Paxton would honour a judge’s instructions to not publicly comment.

It offered a sharp contrast to how conservatives rallied around Perry last year when a grand jury in liberal-leaning Austin handed up a two-count indictment against Texas’s longest-serving governor, over a 2013 veto. A judge earlier this month tossed out one of the indictments, leaving only an abuse of power charge.

The cases against Paxton and Perry widely differ, including the fact that Paxton was investigated by the Texas Rangers.

“The Texas Rangers aren’t politically motivated in investigating the crimes they’re investigating,” said David Owens, a former Texas prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney. “If you’ve got the Texas Rangers bringing forth this case, it’s serious.”

Barely seven months after becoming Texas’s top law enforcement officer, Paxton faces accusations thathe mislead investors in a McKinney-based tech startup before taking office,special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told the New York Times....

===

rawstory

Indicted GOP Texas attorney general caught handing out high-paid taxpayer-funded jobs to political buddies

Bethania Palma Markus

01 Apr 2016 at 16:08 ET

The Texas attorney general may be the state’s top law enforcer, but Ken Paxton has raised eyebrows recently by hiring two high-paid staffers without following the law, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The positions for assistant attorney general and communications director were not listed for the public, even though two outsiders were hired, the News reports. Texas law states that jobs must be posted and open to the public if outside applicants are being considered. Paxton personally selected the two men he hired and did not advertise their positions.

Paxton hired Jeff Mateer, an attorney with the non-profit law firm, First Liberty, which litigates so-called religious freedom cases, and Marc Rylander, a former pastor at Paxton’s church.

Paxton’s office confirmed to the News that the positions weren’t publicly posted, and that he interprets the law to mean he can appoint people who are above the level of deputy to taxpayer-funded positions.

“It’s important that the attorney general, or any leader of any of the state agencies, has in his leadership positions persons he trusts and believes have the ability to lead the particular organization,” Mateer told the News. “Those have been, historically, positions that have been appointed, and I think that is across the board, not just in the attorney general’s office, but across Texas state government.”

This type of activity isn’t new for Paxton — or for Texas’ conservative leadership.

The Austin American-Statesman last year reviewed hundreds of pages of personnel files and found that several people with political ties to Paxton, Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Rick Perry were given coveted government jobs before they had even filled out applications — if they ever filled them out at all.

Others, who didn’t have those connections, faced “months of red tape, interviews and vetting — just the sort of competition that state law envisions for coveted state jobs,” according to the Statesman. Documents obtained by the paper indicate Paxton was promising well-paid public sector jobs to his political allies before he took office.

A spokeswoman for Paxton’s office told the paper that jobs were doled out to hand-picked appointees without advertising or even the necessary paperwork — and claimed there was nothing wrong with that.

“It is common practice for high-level positions to be appointed to help the constitutional officer implement the policies the people elected him or her to do,” Cynthia Meyer wrote in an email to the Statesman. “We are confident that we followed applicable law in selecting high-level staff.”

The result? High-level staffers making more than $70,000 a year — hired without competition. One of those, according to the Statesman, was Paxton’s former spokeswoman Allison Castle, who sailed into the $137,500-a-year job without ever bothering to apply for it. Rylander replaced Castle.

Per the Statesman:

Neither [Castle or Meyer] answered questions about how the agency picks and chooses who is appointed and who must face traditional hiring hurdles. Nor could the office point to any specific exemption from the far-reaching state statute, which reads: “Any agency … that has an employment opening for which persons from outside the agency will be considered shall list the opening with the Texas Workforce Commission.”

While the hirings appear to be illegal, the Statesman points out there is no enforcement provision written into the law.

“We don’t enforce the rule,” Lisa Givens, spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission, told the Statesman. “We accept the postings. There’s no enforcement in this provision.”

Mateer confirmed to the News that Paxton personally approached him to offer him the job.

While neither man has experience working in government, both are making slightly more than their predecessors, the News reports.

Rylander helped slash the prosecution budget targeting Paxton in a securities fraud case for which he is indicted, urging the Collin County Commissioners Court in August to cut the $2 million in funding for the case. That day, the commission agreed to cut the budget drastically down to just $285,000, then later to $100,000 — though they have since been forced to pay more than double that for prosecuting attorneys’ work on the case, the News reports.

Paxton is facing three felony counts and has unsuccessfully tried to have the indictments dismissed, according to the News. He is accused of ” funneling his legal clients to a friend’s investment firm without being registered with the state as an ‘investment adviser representative,’ a third-degree felony,” along with two fraud charges of allegedly encouraging two people to invest in a tech start-up without disclosing he was being compensated by the company.

raga bs bio

Texas’ 51st Attorney General, Ken Paxton, is known for his principled and uncompromising devotion to America’s founding values, and as a man who has demonstrated enormous political courage throughout his service to Texas.

The son of an Air Force veteran, General Paxton is a stalwart leader with an abiding passion and deep-seated respect for our U.S. Constitution.

While serving in both chambers of the Texas Legislature, General Paxton worked to protect the 10th Amendment, defending Texas’ state sovereignty. He co-sponsored and defended Texas’ Voter ID bill, and has been a prominent voice in the defense of religious liberty and the protection of the unborn.

A defender of our free enterprise system, General Paxton has worked to make Texas a beacon of economic prosperity, opposing burdensome government regulations that harm Texas jobs and stunt economic growth.

Ken Paxton was born December 23, 1962, in Minot, North Dakota, while his father was stationed at Minot Air Force Base. He graduated from Baylor University, where he served as student body president, earning a B.A. in psychology in 1985 and an M.B.A. in 1986.

In 1991, he earned a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, founded by Thomas Jefferson. After law school, he joined the firm of Strasburger & Price, LLP, and later served as in-house counsel for J.C. Penney Company.

First elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2002, General Paxton represented House District 70 for 10 years, one of the fastest-growing regions in the state. In 2012, he was elected to the Texas State Senate, representing Senate District 8 in Collin and Dallas counties.

He met his wife Angela, a guidance counselor at Legacy Christian Academy in Frisco, while they were students at Baylor. The Paxtons have four children: Tucker, Abby, Mattie, and Katie. They are members of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

official bs

**Joint Sting Operation Leads to Arrest of 16 Suspected Child Predators**

Monday, July 20, 2015 – Cleburne, Texas

The Texas Attorney General’s Office (OAG) today announced the arrest of 16 suspected child predators following a joint sting operation between the OAG’s Child Exploitation Unit, the Johnson County Special Crimes Unit and Sheriff’s Office, and the Cleburne and Burleson Police departments.

**Attorney General Paxton Statement on Two Year Anniversary of HB 2**

Friday, July 17, 2015 – Austin, Texas

“Two years ago this weekend, House Bill 2 was signed into law, recognizing the dignity of life in the womb at 20 weeks, as well as the need to improve both sanitary conditions and the quality of care available to Texas women. I was proud to co-sponsor House Bill 2 in the Texas Senate and help elevate the Lone Star State as a leader for life, and I’m proud to have led the effort to defend portions of HB 2 in court."

**Media Advisory: Clifton Lamar Williams scheduled for execution**

Wednesday, July 15, 2015 – Austin, Texas

Pursuant to a court order by the 114th Judicial District Court of Smith County, Clifton Lamar Williams is scheduled for execution after 6 p.m. on July 16, 2015. In 2006, Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for the capital murder of ninety-three-year-old Cecelia Schneider.

**:{Texas Attorney General’s Office Investigating Planned Parenthood After Shocking Video About Sale of Baby Body Parts:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:**

Wednesday, July 15, 2015 – Austin, Texas

“The Office of the Attorney General has launched an official investigation into Planned Parenthood following the release of a video that details the organization’s calculated slaughter of human babies to maximize the available body parts they plan to sell."

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