Gov. Rick Perry of Texas Is Indicted

Discussion in 'Politics' started by StrangerInAStrangeLand, Aug 16, 2014.

  1. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Gov. Rick Perry of Texas Is Indicted on Charge of Abuse of Power

    By MANNY FERNANDEZAUG. 15, 2014

    AUSTIN, Tex. — A grand jury indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts on Friday, charging that he abused his power last year when he tried to pressure the district attorney here, a Democrat, to step down by threatening to cut off state financing to her office.

    The indictment left Mr. Perry, a Republican, the first Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal charges and presented a major roadblock to his presidential ambitions at the very time that he had been showing signs of making a comeback.

    Grand jurors in Travis County charged Mr. Perry with abusing his official capacity and coercing a public servant, according to Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor assigned to the case.

    The long-simmering case has centered on Mr. Perry’s veto power as governor. His critics asserted that he used that power as leverage to try to get an elected official — Rosemary Lehmberg, the district attorney in Travis County — to step down after her arrest on a drunken-driving charge last year. Ms. Lehmberg is Austin’s top prosecutor and oversees a powerful public corruption unit that investigates state, local and federal officials; its work led to the 2005 indictment of a former Republican congressman, Tom DeLay, on charges of violating campaign finance laws.

    Following Ms. Lehmberg’s arrest, Mr. Perry and his aides threatened to veto $7.5 million in state funding for the public corruption unit in her office unless she resigned. The governor followed through on his threat, vetoing the money by stating that he could not support “continued state funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public’s confidence.”

    Mr. Perry’s detractors said that his moves crossed the line from hardball politics to criminal acts that violated state laws. His aides denied that he did anything wrong and said that he acted in accordance with the veto power granted to every governor under the Texas Constitution. Ms. Lehmberg did not resign and remains in office.

    The criminal indictment of the state’s chief executive shocked the Texas political world. Mr. Perry will be arraigned at a later date at the county criminal courthouse a few blocks from the governor’s mansion.

    Mr. McCrum said it was a matter of procedure that anyone charged with a felony “will have to be booked in,” including the governor. Asked if Mr. Perry would have to have a mug shot taken and be fingerprinted, he added, “I imagine that’s included in that.”

    The charge of abuse of official capacity carries a prison sentence of five to 99 years, and the charge of coercion of a public servant a two- to 10-year prison sentence.

    Mr. Perry did not testify before the grand jury. David L. Botsford, Mr. Perry’s lawyer, defended the governor’s actions in a statement late Friday, saying the indictment set a “dangerous precedent” by allowing a grand jury to punish the governor’s use of his constitutional authority.

    “This clearly represents political abuse of the court system, and there is no legal basis in this decision,” Mr. Botsford said. “The facts of this case conclude that the governor’s veto was lawful, appropriate and well within the authority of the office of the governor.”

    Mr. Perry has announced he is not seeking re-election and will leave office in January. He is considering a second run for president and has been crisscrossing the country and traveling abroad in recent months to raise his political profile and to show he has fully recovered from his unsuccessful 2012 campaign, which for a time turned him into a national punch line. Lately he seems to have rebounded, making numerous appearances on national talk shows to discuss his plan to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the border to combat crime and illegal immigration and receiving high praise from conservatives on his recent trip to Iowa.

    The criminal investigation involving Mr. Perry and his aides began when a nonprofit government watchdog group, Texans for Public Justice, filed a complaint last June accusing the governor of misdemeanor and felony offenses over his veto threat. A judge appointed a special prosecutor — Mr. McCrum, a San Antonio lawyer and former federal prosecutor — and the grand jury began hearing the case in April.

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    A special prosecutor assigned to the case described the charges against the Texas governor, which include abusing his official capacity and coercing a public servant.

    A number of Mr. Perry’s aides have testified in recent weeks before the grand jury, including Ken Armbrister, director of the governor’s legislative office. A previous grand jury was sworn in last year to determine whether Ms. Lehmberg should be removed for official misconduct. Its term expired, however, and it appeared to not consider the issues surrounding Mr. Perry’s threat and veto.

    Austin and Travis County are Democratic-dominated regions in a Republican-dominated state. Asked to respond to those who described the investigation as a partisan witch hunt, Mr. McCrum said: “I’m not going to get into that. That didn’t go into my consideration whatsoever.”

    The indictment could mar the legacy of Mr. Perry, the longest-serving governor in Texas history, as his tenure nears an end.

    According to the state comptroller’s website, the governor’s office has paid his lawyer, Mr. Botsford, nearly $80,000 since June. Legal experts said that other state officials who have been accused of crimes relating to their duties have had to pay for their own defense, and this was one of the first times Texas taxpayers were paying the bill.

    One Saturday night in April 2013, Ms. Lehmberg was found by sheriff’s deputies with an open bottle of vodka in the front passenger seat of her car in a church parking lot in Austin and was arrested on a drunken-driving charge. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.

    She plays a powerful role in Austin in overseeing the Public Integrity Unit. At the time of Mr. Perry’s veto last year, prosecutors in the unit had been investigating a state agency called the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The agency — one of Mr. Perry’s signature initiatives — came under scrutiny by state lawmakers after accusations of mismanagement and corruption; a former official there was indicted last year for his handling of an $11 million grant.

    Mr. Perry’s critics accused him of using Ms. Lehmberg’s arrest to try to dismantle the public corruption squad, to thwart the investigation into the cancer-research agency and to seize an opportunity to take down a prominent Democrat. The public corruption unit has been scaled down, but it continues its work largely using county financing.

    “The governor has a legitimate statutory role in the legislative process,” said Craig McDonald, the director and founder of Texans for Public Justice, the group that filed the original complaint. “The governor had no authority over the district attorney’s job.”

    But Mr. Perry’s supporters said the accusations amounted to an attempt to criminalize politics. Republican lawmakers had attempted for years to strip the public corruption unit of state financing, accusing it of politically motivated prosecutions.

    The last Texas governor to face criminal charges was James E. “Pa” Ferguson, who was indicted in 1917 by a Travis County grand jury on embezzlement and eight other charges. His case also involved a veto that stirred anger: Mr. Ferguson vetoed the entire appropriation to the University of Texas because it had refused to fire certain faculty members. The state Senate voted to impeach him, but he resigned first.


    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/u...d-over-veto-of-funds-for-das-office.html?_r=0
     
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  3. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    It couldn't' happen to a more deserving man. Now if he could remember what government agencies he wants to get rid of.
     
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  5. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Trouble is tho, it could work in his favor if he isn't convicted.
     
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  7. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    I think it could work for him in the primaries, but it wouldn't work for him in the general.
     
  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Since this is state law, and as it will be a very cold day in Hell before a red state Republican controlled legislature impeaches a sitting Republican office holder, Perry could pardon himself.
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Needs Must

    What's weird is that I want to say that I didn't see this coming. It was a proper surprise, to be certain. But then in the echoes, I have a memory of chuckling about the idea of someone trying to convene a grand jury to look into Rick Perry. I can't even promise you at this point that it's a real memory. There might actually be a note on it somewhere in my electronic Universe, but I haven't really started looking for it.

    I'm surprised, but I'm also not, and I can't explain why not. There's something more here than, "Well, I just knew he had to be dirty!" That is to say, for some reason I think I did know this was possible, but just didn't believe that it would actually go this far.

    Much reading ahead. The Devil, as such, will be in the detail.
     
  10. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    3,523
    Fairly certain that this "Rabbit Hole" extends back at least as far as what was kept "under the radar" during Rick Perry's 2012 presidential bid.

    Perhaps some may remember that Rosemary Lehmberg's Travis County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit had investigated CPRIT?
    Jerald Cobbs had resigned(in November 2012!) as a Chief in CPRIT, and was charged in December 2013 with a Felony.

    A little background or refresher can be had by checking out these Links :
    http://progresstexas.org/blog/rick-perry-be-investigated-political-blackmail
    http://watchdogblog.dallasnews.com/...prit-official-indicted-on-felony-charge.html/
    http://www.burntorangereport.com/di...ak-in-to-grand-jury-hearing-through-back-door

    Politics, ain't it wonderful?
     
  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    22,910
    Two more Republican governors and 2016 hopefuls are under investigation and could be facing indictments too. And some wonder why Republicans hate anti-corruption laws.
     
  12. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    Nice to see that even the Democrats are nuts in Texas!
     
  13. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    How Will Being Indicted Affect Rick Perry’s 2016 Presidential Hopes?

    Aug 15 By Harry Enten and Walt Hickey

    Christopher Hooks at the The Texas Observer has an outstanding deep dive into the scandal’s background. When a local district attorney (a Democrat) was arrested for driving while intoxicated, Perry called for her resignation and threatened to cut off all funding to her office, the Public Integrity Unit, which is tasked with enforcing ethics laws in the state, if she refused to leave office. She refused, and Perry followed-through on his threat. From the Texas Observer piece:

    At the end of last year’s legislative session, Perry eliminated the entirety of the Public Integrity Unit’s funding–some $8 million over two years. Money that was going to investigate, in small part, his own party’s mismanagement of state government agencies, including alleged corruption in CPRIT [the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas].

    Perry ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and was making a lot of noise about running again in 2016. So how does this affect Perry’s presidential ambitions?

    A lot of reporters and pundits will spend the next several weeks trying to answer that question, but the truth is we won’t know for quite some time. It looked like Perry would have had a difficult time capturing the nomination even before Friday’s indictment. According to recent polls by NBC/Marist, Perry was at 7 percent in Iowa and 5 percent in New Hampshire. His Iowa numbers are especially depressed from where he was polling when he first declared his candidacy in 2012.

    Perhaps more importantly, Perry’s repeated gaffes in 2012 would have made it difficult for the GOP establishment to support him again in 2016. As we’ve noted in the past, establishment support (or at least a lack of opposition) is key to winning a Republican primary. It’s one of the reasons Newt Gingrich lost in 2012. The establishment wants to nominate electable candidates. Perry’s past missteps and misstatements may have rendered him unacceptable to Republican power brokers.

    Perry’s likelier tactic would have been to try and rally the conservative grass-roots, a voting bloc that’s been willing to stick by a candidate attacked in the mainstream press. Perhaps conservative voters will rally around Perry, especially if the case against Perry looks politically motivated. It’s difficult to predict. Scandals sometimes sink a politician and sometimes barely register electorally.

    For example: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of Perry’s potential rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In the wake of the George Washington Bridge scandal, Christie’s support tanked both within his own state and nationally. He has yet to rebound. He’s clearly still in contention for the 2016 GOP nomination — polling above Perry, no less — but the bridge scandal made a sizable dent in his support.

    Christie was polling nationally above 15 percent for the Republican nomination before the scandal hit. Since that time, his numbers have fallen to just below 10 percent. In New Jersey, Christie had a 65 percent job approval in December 2013 and a 50 percent rating in June 2014.

    There was Herman Cain’s presidential bid in 2012. Cain led the Republican field with 30 percent in a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac in October 2011, a week before allegations surfaced that Cain behaved inappropriately toward two women while running the National Restaurants Association. The next Quinnipiac poll, taken two weeks after the scandal broke, had Cain at just 14 percent. He dropped out two weeks after that.

    On the other hand, sometimes these things fail to have an impact electorally, as in the case of then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. A few days before Gennifer Flowers played audio tapes allegedly proving she had had an affair with Clinton, he led the Democratic presidential field with 22 percent of the vote, according to a CBS/New York Times poll. Just a few days after the audio tape was released, Clinton actually jumped to 31 percent in a Los Angeles Times poll. He would go on to place a strong second in the New Hampshire primary and win the nomination.

    So is Perry’s 2016 goose cooked? We’ll need more time to know for sure. Christie’s number problems were immediately recognized in polling, but we still don’t know if he will recover by 2016.


    http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/rick-perry-indicted/
     
  14. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

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    Texas Gov. Perry booked on abuse of power charges, vows to 'prevail'

    Published August 19, 2014 ·FoxNews.com

    Texas Gov. Rick Perry was defiant as he turned himself in to authorities Tuesday on the heels of his indictment for alleged abuse of power, vowing to "prevail" in the case.

    The Republican governor spoke to a cheering crowd outside the Travis County justice complex in Austin before entering the courthouse, saying he does not regret his actions.

    "I'm here today because I believe in the rule of law, and I'm here today because I did the right thing," Perry said. "I am going to enter this courthouse with my head held high knowing that the actions that I took were not only lawful and legal, but right."

    The governor was fingerprinted and had a mug shot taken before leaving a few minutes later. Shortly thereafter, Perry posted a photo of himself at an ice cream store on Twitter.

    This comes after Perry began assembling a high-powered legal team to defend him in the case, which Perry and his allies argue is politically motivated. Perry is facing charges of coercion and official oppression that carry a maximum sentence of 109 years in prison.

    A grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise largely conservative Texas, indicted Perry on Friday for carrying out a threat to veto $7.5 million in funding for the state's public integrity unit after Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, a Democrat, refused to resign following a drunken driving arrest. The ethics unit is housed under Lehmberg's office.

    The governor has emphatically stood by his veto and denied all wrongdoing. The judge overseeing the case, Republican Bert Richardson, decided against issuing an arrest warrant and instead granted a simple legal summons.

    No one disputes that Perry has the power to veto measures approved by the Legislature, but his threat to do so before actually carrying it out prompted a complaint from a left-leaning watchdog group.

    The grand jury met for months before handing down its indictment, and Perry's $450-per-hour defense attorney, David L. Botsford, was paid using state funds.

    Aides said the case wouldn't prevent Perry from maintaining his packed upcoming schedule, which includes visits to the key presidential battleground states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in the next two weeks. Perry also has a Thursday speech on immigration at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

    Perry's arraignment has been set for Friday morning, though a representative says Perry will not attend.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    As much as I dislike Perry, I think he will prevail. The evidence against him seems weak. And the Democrat certainly deserved to lose her job.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Well, whether or not she deserved to lose her job isn't really relevant. If you steal from a company, the defense "well they deserve to be out of business anyway" generally doesn't fly.

    I think it's 50/50 at this point. The case is indeed weak, but there is a precedent (James Ferguson's impeachment) where a similar case was prosecuted.
     
  17. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Perry may get convicted, but he will never spend a day in jail. If he should be convicted, there will be appeals. And in the end any conviction would be overturned. This is after all Texas (e.g. Tom Delay) and Perry is a Republican.
     
  18. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    True, but the old queen will never be president, thank God.
     
  19. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Perry will gain strength from this ineffectual attack.
     
  20. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, criminal corruption charges will endear Perry with his Republican brethren, but that endearment won't work for him with independents.
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    All he did is use his veto power. It's hard to determine a direct correlation between that and his expressions of distrust in the DA.
     
  22. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    If that were all he did, why did the grand jury indict him? Obviously the grand jury which was charged with investigating the issues and has investigated the relevant issues and has more information than you or I, doesn't share your opinion.
     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    They are Democrats.
     

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