Perry must have the same advisers as Stephen Harper.
The Republican governor's accused of threatening to veto district attorney's funding
The Associated Press
Posted: Aug 15, 2014 7:02 PM ET|
Last Updated: Aug 15, 2014 7:02 PM ET

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted for abuse of power after carrying out a threat to veto funding for state public corruption prosecutors.

The Republican governor's accused of abusing his official powers by publicly promising to veto $7.5 million for the state public integrity unit at the Travis County District Attorney's office. He was indicted by an Austin grand jury Friday on felony counts of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. Maximum punishment on the first charge is five to 99 years in prison. The second is two to 10 years.

Perry said he'd veto the funding if the district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, didn't resign. Lehmberg had recently been convicted of drunken driving. When Lehmberg refused, Perry carried out his veto.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-gov- ... -1.2738203

Rick Perry is an arrogant, self-absorbed, power-hungry bully ~ hopefully, this will crash his visions of ever running for potus again ~ here's Rachel Maddow's take on the seriousness of these charges ~ Sooz

IMO, Perry is in deep shyte.

I have great hopes that your opinion will morph into fact, oskar ~

Sooz

Good background ~ Sooz

Texas’ Rick Perry indicted on felony counts
08/16/14 10:00 AM
By Steve Benen

It’s been a remarkably difficult year for Republicans governors caught up in assorted controversies. We’ve seen serious allegations directed at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R), Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R), and more recently, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R).

What we haven’t seen this year, however, is a sitting governor face a criminal indictment. That changed late yesterday afternoon.


In a written statement, the Republican governor said he was “outraged and appalled” by the indictment, which he considers “political abuse of the court system.”

If this seems to have come largely out of the blue, it’s not your imagination. While some gubernatorial scandals, such as Chris Christie’s troubles, have become high-profile controversies that unfold over the course of months, Perry’s story has been generally overlooked. In fact, even in Texas, it was widely assumed that the investigation wouldn’t amount to much.

Those assumptions, it turns out, were wrong. So, what’s this case all about?

The story starts, oddly enough, with a DUI. In April 2013, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested for drunk driving. She eventually pleaded guilty, apologized, and served 20 days behind bars for her first offense.

But Lehmberg, who’d been easily elected to her D.A. position, did not resign her post. That didn’t sit well with Rick Perry, who said she should resign in light of the DUI incident. Lehmberg refused.

So, the governor decided to kick things up a notch. Perry announced that if Lehmberg did not resign, he would use his veto power to strip her office of its state funding. When Lehmberg ignored the threat, the governor followed through and vetoed the funding.

At this point, some might be wondering what the big deal is. After all, it hardly seems outrageous to think a governor would want to see a district attorney step down after she spent a few weeks in jail. If the law authorizes Perry to use his veto power, how could it be illegal?

According to the prosecutors who secured the indictment, the answer is: context is everything.

In this case, Rosemary Lehmberg wasn’t just a D.A. who got caught drunk driving. She’s also a Democrat. What’s more, she’s the district attorney for Travis County – home to Texas’ state capital – which gives Lehmberg responsibility for investigating allegations against leading officials in state government, including all ethics complaints against Texas state officials through a Public Integrity Unit that Lehmberg helps lead.

And given that this is Texas, where Republicans dominate, the fact that there’s a Democrat in charge of a Public Integrity Unit that investigates GOP officials doesn’t sit well. Republicans have long wanted one of their own in that office. (Note, it was the Travis County D.A.’s office that indicted then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay nearly a decade ago.)

Given these details, the innocuous explanation is that Perry used his legal authority to push out a district attorney who got caught committing a crime. The not-at-all-innocuous explanation is that Perry used the DUI as a pretense to gut a Public Integrity Unit so that Republican state officials would face less scrutiny from a pesky Democrat.

The grand jury appears to have concluded that the latter explanation has merit.

But if the governor has veto power under the state constitution, how can his reasoning be legally problematic? That’s no doubt what the defense attorneys will say, but as Rachel noted on the show last night, “You may have the constitutional right to vote, for example, you don’t have the constitutional right to sell your vote. Your action itself is not necessarily independently evaluated from its motives in a case like this.”

Perry will be arraigned next week. How this might affect the governor’s presidential ambitions – he’s been spending quite a bit of time in Iowa lately – remains to be seen.

[Note to readers: our usual Saturday feature, “This Week in God,” is off today, but it will return next week.]

[Sooz says same video clip posted above is linked here in the original]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/texas-rick-perry-indicted-felony-counts

Perry announced that if Lehmberg did not resign, he would use his veto power to strip her office of its state funding.

That's where Perry screwed up... in spades. Had he not made any threats he probably wouldn't have been charged.

If Lehmberg is the DA who investigates potential crimes in Travis County and heads the ethics committee that specifically investigates public officials, doesn't that mean Lehmberg conducted this investigation and assembled the grand jury for the indictment? If so, she's even slimier than Perry.

Nope. The investigation was by a special prosecutor.

Interesting ... and sobering ~ sounds like Perry has at least a fairly decent chance of skating ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

What You Need To Know About The Indictment Naming Texas Governor Rick Perry
by Ian Millhiser Posted on August 15, 2014 at 8:25 pm

Rick Perry, Texas’ longstanding Republican governor and a 2012 presidential candidate, is now under indictment. The indictment lays out two counts against the Texas governor, one for “Abuse of Official Capacity” and the other for “Coercion of Public Servant.”

As the Texas Observer explains, this indictment arises out of a dispute over who will hold one of the few Texas offices with statewide power that is still controlled by a Democrat. Rosemary Lehmberg is that Democrat, and she is the District Attorney for Travis County, Texas. Because Travis County includes Austin, the state capital, her office controls a Public Integrity Unit that investigates alleged ethical breaches by state-level politicians. Among other things, that unit investigated the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which is accused of improperly distributing grant money — including some grant money that was given to people with close ties to Governor Perry.

In April of 2013, however, Lehmberg was arrested for driving while very, very intoxicated. Hours after her arrest, her blood alcohol level was three times above Texas’ legal limit. She eventually pleaded guilty and spent a few weeks in jail. Yet Lehmberg has refused to step down from her role as District Attorney. According to the Observer, this is because she does not want Perry to have the opportunity to replace her with a Republican.

Perry allegedly crossed the line from an eager partisan hoping to replace a powerful official to a governor who broke the law, however, when he threatened to veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit unless Lehmberg resigned — and then he followed through on this threat. According to one count of the indictment, Perry “by means of coercion . . . influenced or attempted to influence Rosemary Lehmberg . . . in the specific performance of her official duty” — that duty being her obligation “to continue to carry out her responsibilities” as Travis County D.A.

The indictment lists two state laws which Perry allegedly violated. The first is a vague statute prohibiting public servants from “intentionally or knowingly . . . misuse[ing] government property, services, personnel, or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has come into the public servant’s custody or possession by virtue of the public servant’s office or employment.” The second is a somewhat more specific law prohibiting anyone from using coercion to “influence[] or attempt[] to influence a public servant in a specific exercise of his official power or a specific performance of his official duty or influence[] or attempt[] to influence a public servant to violate the public servant’s known legal duty.”

Even if Perry’s actions fall within these statutes, however, the special prosecutor bringing these charges may need to overcome a significant constitutional obstacle. In a statement released Friday evening, Perry’s attorney claims that “[t]he veto in question was made in accordance with the veto authority afforded to every governor under the Texas Constitution.” She may have a point.

The Texas Constitution gives the governor discretion to decide when to sign and when to veto a bill, as well as discretion to veto individual line-items in an appropriation bill. Though the state legislature probably could limit this veto power in extreme cases — if a state governor literally sold his veto to wealthy interest groups, for example, the legislature could almost certainly make that a crime — a law that cuts too deep into the governor’s veto power raises serious separation of powers concerns. Imagine that the legislature passed a law prohibiting Democratic governors from vetoing restrictions on abortion, or prohibiting Republican governors from vetoing funding for Planned Parenthood. Such laws would rework the balance of power between the executive and the legislature established by the state constitution, and they would almost certainly be unconstitutional.

So an important question facing whichever court is tasked with trying Perry’s case will be whether a law preventing Perry from using strongarm tactics to push out a genuinely compromised public official is an unconstitutional restriction on his discretion as governor or a valid means of reigning in corruption. This is not likely to be an easy question for the judges, and potentially, justices, who are called upon to resolve it.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/08/15/3472049/what-you-need-to-know-about-texas-governor-rick-perry-being-indicted/

i expect at least one of of these charges to stick.

Interesting ... and sobering ~ sounds like Perry has at least a fairly decent chance of skating ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

I was referring to that very point when I said that he would have gotten away with it if he had kept his mouth shut but he made the threat and it cannot be walked back.

Gotta love those people who have diarrhea of the mouth and have no clue...

Thank You, Bryan Fischer

Bryan Fischer is the Director of the American Family Association, a rightwing hate group. He learned to tweet.




What? Lesbians can’t indict gays?

Below is a picture of Michael McCrum, the Republican special prosecutor who indicted Perry. Apparently, he’s a damn good lesbian.

I absolutely did not know that he’s a lesbian. Imagine how stoopid I feel.



http://www.juanitajean.com/2014/08/16/t ... n-fischer/

LMAO!!! ~ typical!

Sooz

Of course "Perry finds a way to blame Obama" ~ that is the holy grail for GOP/TPers ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Perry finds a way to blame Obama for indictments
08/18/14 09:20 AM
By Steve Benen

After Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) was unexpectedly indicted late Friday, the Republican governor discovered some unexpected allies: observers who generally don’t care for Perry blasted the charges against him.

MSNBC’s Ari Melber, for example, characterized the case against the Texas governor as “weak.” Jon Chait called the charges “ridiculous.” Rick Hasen and David Axelrod reached similar conclusions. Scott Lemieux, summarizing the thoughts of many, added, “I’m as contemptuous of Perry as anyone, but this seems really thin.”

Benjy Sarlin joked, “It’s hard to believe an issue would get liberal commentators rallying on Rick Perry’s side, but this indictment seems to be doing it.”

And while the Republican governor and likely presidential candidate is clearly pleased by his reluctant backers, he doesn’t exactly look above the fray when blames President Obama for an indictment handed down by a Texas grand jury.


Look, if the governor wants to mount a proper defense against the pending felony counts, fine. Apparently, he’ll even enjoy a fair amount of support from the left.

But if Perry wants to position himself as a responsible chief executive, who’s been targeted for petty and partisan reasons, his baseless complaining about the president won’t help his broader public-relations cause.

For one thing, there is no IRS scandal; border security has never been stronger; and it’s Perry’s party that supports expansive NSA surveillance. If this is the best the governor can do to offer proof of Obama eroding the “rule of law,” he’s going to need a new talking point.

For another, let’s not forget that the Obama administration has literally nothing to do with Perry’s indictment. The Texas grand jury was empaneled by Texas prosecutors scrutinizing Texas law.

But taking a step back, it’s hard not to notice the pattern: when Republicans find themselves in a difficult position, they reflexively try to blame the president whether it makes sense or not. Eric Cantor lost a primary? Blame President Obama. John Boehner failed to pass immigration bills? Blame President Obama. Bob McDonnell was indicted on corruption charges? Blame President Obama. Sam Brownback fared much worse than expected in a GOP primary? Blame President Obama. Chris Christie’s plan screwed up New Jersey’s finances? Blame President Obama.

It’s getting a little silly.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/perry-finds-way-blame-obama-indictments

Irrelevant nonsense, IMO. What happens in court is what matters.

Excellent article about the whole story and not just the Rick Perry camp of finger pointing. All emphasis mine.

Why Rick Perry Will Be Convicted

If the court of public opinion has an impact on a jury's decisions, Texas Governor Rick Perry may have a chance of beating his indictments. While poorly informed Democrats like Obama advisor David Axelrod call the indictments "sketchy," Perry's advisors have him concentrating on defending his constitutional authority to exercise the line item budget veto.

Except that's not what this case is about.

Perry is accused of using his veto authority to coerce a publicly elected official into leaving office. And when the veto threat, and later the actual exercise of the veto didn't work, he may have tried a bit of bribery, which is why he is facing criminal charges.

Not because he exercised his constitutional veto authority.

Some of the media appear to have adopted the Perry narrative that he wanted to get rid of an irresponsible Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg because she had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. Lehmberg, whose blood alcohol level was about three times above legal limits, was recorded on video as drunk and belligerent during booking. Perry is arguing he eliminated the $7.5 million dollar budget that Lehmberg managed for the Public Integrity Unit (PIU) because she was no longer responsible enough to run the operation.

But the governor probably had another motive.

The PIU had been investigating the Cancer Research and Prevention Institute (CPRIT), a $3 billion dollar taxpayer funded project that awarded research and investment grants to startups targeting cancer cures. The entire scientific review team, including Nobel Laureate scientists, resigned because they said millions were handed out through political favoritism. Investigations by Texas newspapers indicated much of the money was ending up in projects proposed by campaign donors and supporters of Governor Perry. In fact, one of the executives of CPRIT was indicted in the PIU investigation for awarding an $11 million dollar grant to a company without the proposal undergoing any type of review.

Perry might have been the next target.

The same cronyism appeared to be at work in two other large taxpayer accounts called the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF), and the Texas Enterprise Fund, (TEF), which were supposed to be used to help technology startups and assist companies wanting to move to Texas. In total, the governor and his appointees had purview over about $19 billion and where they wanted it invested.

Why not make sure your contributors get some of that sweetness?

If Perry were able to get Lehmberg to resign, he'd have the authority to appoint her replacement. We can assume that would have been a Republican, and that any investigations might have stuttered to a halt. The DA, however, refused, and began to field threats from the governor's office that the PIU budget was to be zeroed out via line item veto. But the exercise of the veto is not what got Perry indicted.

First, he used the veto to threaten a public officeholder. This is abuse of the power of his office. Presidents and governors frequently use the possibility of vetoes to change the course of legislation. But that is considerably different than trying to force an elected officeholder to resign. What Perry did, if true, can be politely called blackmail, and, when he sent emissaries to urge Lehmberg to quit even after his veto, he may have indulged in bribery. According to sources close to the grand jury, Perry dispatched two of his staffers and one high-profile Democrat to tell Lehmberg if she left her office the governor would reinstate the PIU budget. One report indicates there may have been a quid pro quo of a new, more lucrative job for the DA, which is why this case has nothing to do with his right to use the veto.

But that's where Perry will focus his public defense.

Of course, he will also continue his argument this is another manifestation of partisan politics in Austin. That claim is as misleading as his veto rhetoric. There wasn't a single Democrat involved in the investigation and indictment. In fact, Perry appointed the presiding judge in the case, Billy Ray Stubblefield of the 3rd Judicial District. Stubblefield named retired Judge Bert Richardson of Bexar County (San Antonio) to handle the grand jury investigation, and Richardson picked Mike McCrum to be the special prosecutor in the case. McCrum, who withdrew his name from consideration for U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas, had the support of the two Republican Texas U.S. Senators and the state's Democratic officeholders, which hardly makes him a Democratic Party hack. (A Washington gridlock over the confirmation process in the U.S. Senate caused him to withdraw.)

That all makes it hard to sell the partisan attack narrative that reporters are spreading for Perry.

The idea that he was concerned about Lehmberg's drunk driving is also fatuous nonsense. Two other Texas DAs were arrested for DUI during Perry's tenure in office and he spoke not a discouraging word about their indiscretions. Kaufman County D.A. Rick Harrison drove the wrong way into traffic and was found guilty of drunk driving in 2009 and in 2003 Terry McEachern, DA of Swisher County, was convicted of a DUI. Perry said nothing. It's probably only coincidental that both of those individuals were Republicans and did not oversee an investigative unit responsible for keeping elected officials honest in the capitol.

The indictments, however, have not left the Texas governor chastened. During his six-minute news conference after they were handed down, he threatened retaliation for the people involved in getting him into this mess, which is probably another form of official abuse he has promised to deliver to his fellow Texans. His central complaint was that the legal and grand jury investigative process was being used to settle political differences and that wasn't something we did in America, which is a startling irony for anyone who knows how Rick Perry first won statewide public office in Texas.

When Perry ran for Texas agriculture commissioner in 1990, he benefited from a federal investigation of his opponent's office, which had been facilitated by his campaign manager Karl Rove. Rove worked with an FBI agent to investigate Democrat Jim Hightower and two of his senior staffers at a time when Perry was challenging Hightower for the agriculture commissioner's job. The FBI, in fact, served search warrants at Hightower's state office on the day he was out of town announcing his reelection plans.

Perry had been a Democrat and Rove had convinced him to change parties. Rove ran Perry's winning campaign while also constantly leaking information on the federal investigation to reporters. Hightower escaped indictment but the two senior administrators of his office were convicted of raising campaign money for the Democrat during after hours while traveling on state business. One long-time Austin political operative said that if that were a crime, it was "something that only happened about 1000 times a day in Texas."

Consequently, Perry is demonstrably incorrect that Texans don't use the legal system to settle political scores. Instead, we often turn it into a form of tragicomedy. The PIU has prosecuted seventeen officeholders since it was created; thirteen were Democrats. And it will be no minor irony that Perry, who came into statewide office as the result of a grand jury investigation, might just end his carer as an outcome of the same process.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore ... 86664.html

We shall see ~ while I hope that roseanne's prior post is correct, it's never easy to correctly predict what a jury will do ~ and, FTR, I don't think the state should be paying for Perry's defense ~ at best, the state should reimburse his legal costs if and only if he is fully exonerated ~ Sooz

Texas Gov. Perry booked on abuse of power charges



AP 18 min ago | By WILL WEISSERT and PAUL J. WEBER of Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry was defiant Tuesday as he was booked on abuse of power charges, telling dozens of cheering supporters outside an Austin courthouse that he would "fight this injustice with every fiber of my being."

The Republican, who is mulling a second presidential run in 2016, was indicted after carrying out a threat to veto funding for state public corruption prosecutors. He has long called the case a political ploy, and supporters chanting his name and holding signs — some saying "Stop Democrat Games" — greeted him when he arrived at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin.

"I'm going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being. And we will prevail," Perry said before walking inside the courthouse, where he set off a metal detector but didn't break stride as he headed toward an office to have his fingerprints and mug shot taken.

The photo shows Perry with a thin smile and without his black-framed glasses.

The longest-serving governor in Texas history was indicted last week for coercion and official oppression for publicly promising to veto $7.5 million for the state public integrity unit, which investigates wrongdoing by elected officials and is run by the Travis County district attorney's office. Perry threatened the veto if the county's Democratic district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, stayed in office after a drunken driving conviction.

Lehmberg refused to resign and Perry carried out the veto, drawing an ethics complaint from a left-leaning government watchdog group.

Perry was indicted by a grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise fiercely conservative Texas.

"I'm going to enter this courthouse with my head held high knowing the actions I took were not only lawful and legal, but right," Perry said in brief remarks before going inside the courthouse.

In less than 10 minutes, Perry was outside again, telling his supporters that he was confident in the rule of law.

"We don't resolve political disputes or policy differences by indictments," he said. "We don't criminalize policy disagreements. We will prevail. We will prevail."

But he isn't letting the case keep him from a packed travel schedule that will take him to the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina over the next two weeks. After his 2012 presidential campaign flamed out, the Republican opted not to seek re-election as governor in November — leaving him more time to focus on rehabilitating his image nationally.

If convicted on both counts, Perry could face a maximum 109 years in prison — though legal experts across the political spectrum have said the case against him may be a tough sell to a jury. No one disputes that Perry has the right to veto any measures passed by the state Legislature, including any parts of the state budget.

But the complaint against Perry alleges that by publicly threatening a veto and trying to force Lehmberg to resign, he coerced her. The Republican judge assigned to the case has assigned a San Antonio-based special prosecutor who insists the case is stronger than it may outwardly appear.

Perry has hired a team of high-powered attorneys, who are being paid with state funds to defend him.

Perry is the first Texas governor to be indicted since 1917. Top Republicans have been especially quick to defend him, though, since a jail video following Lehmberg's April 2013 arrest showed the district attorney badly slurring her words, shouting at staffers to call the sheriff, kicking the door of her cell, and sticking her tongue out. Her blood alcohol level was also three times the legal limit for driving.

http://news.msn.com/us/texas-gov-perry-arrives-for-booking-on-charges

Too bad he can't be indicted in the murder of Cameron Todd Willingham.

You play, you pay ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

When Rick Perry ‘said and did nothing’
08/21/14 10:30 AM—Updated 08/21/14 10:58 AM
By Steve Benen

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) legal troubles started over a year ago, when Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested for drunk driving. After an ugly scene in April 2013, Lehmberg, a Democrat, pleaded guilty, apologized, and served 20 days behind bars.

Despite the fact that this was the district attorney’s first offense, Perry called for her resignation. Lehmberg refused. As we discussed over the weekend, this set a series of steps in motion: the governor announced that if she did not resign, he would use his veto power to strip her office of its state funding. When Lehmberg ignored the threat, the governor followed through and vetoed the funding, in the process scrapping resources for the Texas Public Integrity Unit.

Now, for those who are skeptical of the case against Perry, the governor’s actions hardly seem unreasonable. Indeed, it’s not exactly outrageous to think a governor would want to see a district attorney step down after she spent a few weeks in jail.

But the Dallas Morning News added an interesting wrinkle to this argument.


This is no small detail. If Perry was convinced a DUI was a disqualifier for a district attorney, why did the governor apply this standard so selectively?

Democratic strategist Jason Stanford put it this way: “The key difference was that one of the DAs was investigating his administration for corruption and the other two DAs weren’t.”

In 2009, for example, a Kaufman County D.A. was convicted of drunk driving, his second offense. Perry’s office said nothing, dismissing it as a local issue.

In 2002, a Swisher County district attorney was found guilty of aggravated DWI, which came against the backdrop of a scandal involving the prosecutor and a sting operation gone wrong. Again, Perry said nothing.

So why would the governor rely on different standards? Jason Stanford, the Democratic strategist, added that Perry treated Lehmberg differently “in a way that makes you question what his motives were. And he had a real clear motive because she’s investigating him for corruption” in connection with a cancer-fund scandal.

I realize many on the left and right have been quick to dismiss this case on the merits. That said, I can’t help but wonder if they were a little too quick in their judgments.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-rick-perry-said-and-did-nothing#break

Another nail in Perry's coffin. Though it doesn't change the specific charges against him it certainly points out a pattern.

I get the impression from reading these articles that the grand jury indicted him not because of what he did - exercised his line veto powers - but because of his motivation for doing it.

Yep. That's my read as well and, IMO, that will be his undoing.

A lots of crimes depend on the motivation. Even Murder.

Judge warns against Perry grand jury threats

A state district judge in Austin said Thursday that she intends to protect members of the grand jury that indicted Gov. Rick Perry from any threats — veiled or direct — from the governor or anyone else.

Judge Julie Kocurek of the 390th District Court, a Democrat, said Perry’s Saturday statement, issued a day after the indictment, could be construed as a threat and possible violation of the law. Kocurek, as the administrative presiding judge of all criminal courts in the county, sa id that “no one is above the law,” and the public needs to know that grand jurors are legally protected from any threat.

“I have a duty to make sure that our members of the grand jury are protected,” Kocurek said. “I am defending the integrity of our grand jury system.”

The judge said that Perry might have made a veiled threat when he said: “I am confident we will ultimately prevail, that this farce of a prosecution will be revealed for what it is, and that those responsible will be held to account.”

The only people that Perry could be referring to as being accountable are the grand jurors, judge and prosecutor, Kocurek said.

The Texas Penal Code that outlaws obstruction and retaliation says that anyone who “intentionally or knowingly harms or threatens to harm” a grand juror faces a second degree felony, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/judg ... ats/ng6zb/

Did Perry get a shovel for X-mas?