Abuse of power charges against former Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry were dismissed Wednesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
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That was the crux of the other charge against Perry: “abuse of official capacity”, which the appeals court dismissed.
The charges against the former Governor began with his threat in 2013 to veto money for the State’s Public Integrity Unit unless the Travis County District Attorney stepped down.
Perry’s “critics accused him of using Ms. Lehmberg’s arrest to dismantle a public-corruption squad that was unpopular with the state’s Republican leadership and to try to go after Ms. Lehmberg, a powerful Democrat in Austin”, explains The New York Times’ Manny Fernandez. At a press conference Wednesday, Perry said the prosecutors tried to erode the powers of the state governor.
“August of 2014, I stood on the steps of the Travis county courthouse and I said we don’t criminalize partisan or policy disagreements or resolve political disputes and policy differences by indictment”. The charge was dismissed over concern for separation of powers under the Texas Constitution and the constitutionality of the statute under the First Amendment.
The longest-serving governor in Texas history, Perry left office in January 2015 while facing a felony indictment handed down the previous summer by a grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise mostly deeply conservative Texas.
Special prosecutor Michael McCrum persuaded a Travis County grand jury to indict then-Gov.
Indeed, the indictment was a miss from the start (as detailed in the amicus brief of constitutional and criminal law scholars filed in the Court of Criminal Appeals). It was an abrupt end to the legal troubles that have loomed over Perry during his last moments in the Governor’s mansion and his failed 2016 presidential run. The court held it could not rule to restrict the governor’s power of veto. He can appeal, but that would be a lengthy process. Our legal system should never be used to settle political differences.
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Tony Buzbee, Perry’s lead lawyer, was pleased with the ruling. Combined, the original charges carried a potential maximum penalty of 109 years in prison. His latest White House campaign raised barely half that much in its first month, and it quickly became so cash-strapped that it could no longer afford to pay staffers in key states with early presidential primaries or caucuses.
