Greg Abbott, the current Republican governor of Texas, used to be the Texas Attorney General. The Dallas Morning News had a big story this week: a retired employee of the Texas AG’s office, who worked under Abbott and was commended by him, gave the paper documents that prove that Abott’s AG staff had researched an prepared a case against Trump University for bilking citizens of Texas out of more than $2.6 million. They planned to claw that money back as restitution for the victims, and seek another $2.8 million in fines and costs for the state of Texas.
Here is a screen shot from the documents of what they working on.
Note that the top three items are restitution for ordinary men and women living in Texas who were swindled by a con man from New York City.
But the lawsuit never happened, because the staff working on it were told to drop it.
But that lawsuit was never filed.
Instead, the investigation Abbott had opened into the now-defunct real estate training program and Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was dropped and Trump University agreed to cease operations in Texas.
The former deputy director of Abbott’s Consumer Protection Division now alleges that the attorney general office’s decision to quash the lawsuit against Trump — later a major donor to Abbott’s campaign — was a political move that left Texas consumers “high and dry.”
“The decision not to sue him was political,” John Owens told The Dallas Morning News.“Had [Trump] not been involved in politics to the extent he was at the time, we would have gotten approval. Had he been just some other scam artist, we would have sued him.”
The paper has posted the documents on-line for the public to peruse.
Unsurprisingly, we learn this morning that the current Texas AG is scrambling to cover Abbott’s ass:
AG Ken Paxton tries to silence former Gov. Abbott aide who called axing of Trump U suit ‘political’
AUSTIN — Attorney General Ken Paxton, jumping to the aid of his predecessor and current Gov. Greg Abbott, on Friday sent a letter attempting to silence a critic who said the governor dropped a lawsuit against Donald Trump for political reasons.
“The information now publicly available that you disclosed contains both privileged and confidential information,” Paxton’s first assistant attorney general Jeffrey Mateer said in a letter to John Owens, former deputy director of then-Attorney General Abbott’s Consumer Protection Division.
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Years later, Trump gave Abbott $35,000 in political contributions, the only sizable giving the real estate mogul has done in Texas.
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Owens on Friday stood by his statements but said in light of threats from the powerful attorney general’s office he would not comment further other than to defend himself. He had been scheduled to appear for an interview on MSNBC.
“Everything I said was accurate and true,” Owens said. “I’ve done nothing illegal or unethical. I think it’s just a scare tactic.”
Hillary Clinton says she hopes to be competitive in Texas this Fall. Looks like she’ll have something interesting to talk about.