Via empireonline.com

A senior district judge from San Antonio announced that he will name a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of “abuse of official capacity” and other charges against Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint against Perry with the Travis County District Attorney and the Travis County Attorney in June. Perry had threatened to withhold funding for the Public Integrity Unit (PIU), which investigates allegations of official misconduct, unless Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg resigned in the wake of her DWI conviction. (Perry may have had other reasons to want the PIU shut down.) Perry eventually vetoed funding for the PIU.

That veto took away about $3.7 million from the PIU. The Travis County Commissioners’ Court voted in early August to use $1.8 million of Travis County (not Texas) taxpayers’ money, plus over $700,000 “from another fund,” to keep the PIU going. This gave Lehmberg the opportunity to “scold” Perry. Continue reading →