It Depends on Who You Trust

Last week I was a shocked as anyone to learn that the Texas House was doing an impeachment hearing of Attorney General Ken Paxton—with about 48 hours’ notice, at the tail end of the session when normally you’d see them gaveling down a vote every half minute to get through those agreed upon things. (Honorary recognitions fit in that category, but also a number of significant bills that just need a floor vote before they’re ready to be sent to the governor for signature.)

What is going on?

Texas Attorney General Paxton holds a press conference in response to
the call for his impeachment, screenshot from here.

And then I tuned in for the impeachment hearing on Saturday, which took a total of four hours, during which there was no witness testimony, no evidence presented, just House members speaking on one side or the other, followed by an up or down vote on the recommendation of the House General Investigating Committee. And, unlike a US presidential impeachment, the House impeachment would suspend the officeholder until the completion of a trial in the Senate. Instant ouster, albeit not yet permanent.

Word as of this morning is that the Senate will take up the trial August 28. That will be at best three months of AG Paxton being unable to do what he was in the middle of doing, which we should probably consider. Governor Abbott has appointed former Secretary of State John Scott to fill the role in the interim; I do not know anything about Scott.

tweet from Jill Glover SREC committeewoman from SD 12

The vote, after that non-trial half day was 121 Yea 23 Nay. The House is majority Republican; AG Paxton is Republican. 60 Democrats of course voted for impeachment, with 2 or 3 absent or not voting. 61 Republicans voted for impeachment. My representative was one of them (I had urged her to vote Nay based on what I could see).

Among those lonely 23 were two new representatives that I knew as grassroots conservatives for years before they even considered running: Mark Dorazio of San Antonio and Teri Leo-Wilson of Galveston. If they voted Nay, I trust they had good reason. And maybe I was right about what I was seeing.

vote board in the Texas House on Paxton impeachment
image passed along from a friend

I have a gut-level reaction to what has happened, in step with many friends but not everyone. So that was followed by questions about whether I knew enough to make that judgment. So, in the week since, I have tried to do some due diligence, such as it is, which I’m sharing below in what is, I’m sorry to say, much too long for one post (or four), but here it is anyway. And my due diligence and consideration may in fact be more than most of those who voted to impeach on Saturday bothered to do.

the roll call vote on impeachment, May 27, 2023
image passed along to me, from Texas Legislature Online

 

SOURCES

If you’d like to get the basic facts for yourself, I suggest starting with the following:

·        Committee hearing (4 hours) here. (The video is actually only three hours of report, followed by a full hour of a still shot of the room while the committee met privately in executive session. Supposedly the committee began investigation into a possible Paxton impeachment in February, but I can only find these 4 hours related to it, from May 24. There are two other brief videos of this committee, May 23 and 25; no other video record of this committee is provided. See full House video list here.)

·        House Floor debate (4 hours) here.

·        There are 20 counts: here.

·        The OAG put together a very long (374-page) response to allegations, here.

·        The OAG hired an independent group of lawyers to investigate; their report is here.

 

COMMITTEE BACKGROUND

Texas House General Investigating Committee
image from Texas Legislature Online

Here’s the basic background. There were several employees of the Office of Attorney General who were fired in late 2020. They filed whistleblower complaints and claim that their firing was motivated by their complaints. There was a lawsuit involving four of them, which was being settled for $3.3 million dollars, for which the OAG requested state funding.

It is neither unusual nor improper for a state office to require state funding for defense or legal payment regarding suits against a sitting elected official related to his duties in office. That is to protect such officeholders from lawsuit abuse and threat in the course of their work. $3.3 million sounds like a lot of money, and to most of us it is. But it is likely considerably less than yet more ongoing legal defense costs, and is not a great deal more than the wages would have been for four high-level officials in the OAG for the two years since their firing.

It was the request for that $3.3 million that triggered the investigation by the House Investigative Committee, which was convened in February.

In mid-March the Committee hired several lawyers to investigate the allegations of the whistleblowers. They carried out that assignment and made their three-hour oral report on Wednesday, May 24. The Committee then deliberated for one hour and made the recommendation for impeachment to happen on Saturday, May 27.

The Committee did not hear from anyone other than the hired investigators. They did not call for testimony from any first-hand witnesses. Nor were witnesses under oath when interviewed by the investigation team. Nor did they allow as evidence anything from either the OAG (although their long report is referenced by the investigators) or from the independent investigative report, I’ll refer to as the Brisbois report (the name of one of the lawyers of the firm).

The Saturday hearing did not hear either from the investigators or any witnesses. They had floor discussion, as with any other bill, which included hearing from Committee members and other House members who asked to weigh in.

Committee Chairman Murr claimed, during Saturday’s floor debate, that they (the Committee) had been working on this investigation since February, and that the Attorney General could have testified or submitted evidence at any time. That isn’t exactly true. The Committee, as most other House committees, was formed in February, a month after start of session. The Committee assigned the investigation team in mid-March. The investigation team did not interview AG Paxton, nor any others accused of being involved in wrongdoing; they interviewed the whistleblowers and combed through their paperwork. Looking at this now, I wonder if they were avoiding alerting the OAG of their investigation and possible intention to impeach.

Committee Chairman Murr during Saturday's impeachment debate
screenshot from here

The Committee was not open about the investigation. Most House members first learned of the investigation by the Committee when the Committee announced their recommendation to hold the impeachment hearing—with 48 hours’ notice. The Committee had not asked for testimony or information from the OAG, nor from Ken Paxton himself. There must have been some awareness, however, because we were told on Saturday that the OAG had sent someone to present the findings of the independent law firm’s investigation (the Brisbois report), but the Committee had refused it; this happened I believe on Wednesday, the day of the hearing.

So, the House had the three-hour report to go by—and nothing else but their gut instincts about the guilt or innocence of the duly re-elected Attorney General (that is, re-elected for a third term, after the accusations of the whistleblowers were public for two years).

There’s another timing detail we probably ought to add. House Speaker Dade Phelan was drunk during floor debates and votes; video of him slurring his words and appearing either drunk or having a stroke went viral the week before. (Info for non-Texans: his name is pronounced Fee-lin; and I have heard him speak as fast and crisp as an auctioneer in a hurried close of session in the past. He really was drunk in the video.) AG Ken Paxton called him out for it and asked for him to step down. This happened Tuesday, May 23 (a tweet shows 2:53 PM). Paxton followed with a letter to the General Investigative Committee—the one investigating Paxton that no one knew about yet—to open an investigation into Phelan’s drunkenness, a violation of ethics and appropriate behavior that embarrasses the state.

video of House Speaker Dade Phelan drunk on duty
screenshot from here

This is the day before the Committee hearing on Paxton, which Chairman Murr claims was scheduled for that date as of the previous Friday. I can’t verify that after the fact, but since the investigation team presumably had to travel in to give their report, that could be true.

The question is, could Paxton’s call for Phelan to step down be related to the upcoming report on the investigation into him, to deflect? Or could the way the investigation suddenly showed up and quickly turned into an impeachment be a retaliation for calling for Phelan to step down? Or both? Or neither? I don’t think I can answer that here, but it’s worth noting that there’s a lot going on behind scenes that we’re not privy to.

What we can and ought to know, then, is what was reported to the Committee by the investigation team, and what was reported by the Brisbois investigation. (I didn’t yet read through the long OAG report, but a fair trial ought to include that as well; I hope the Senate does that.)

 

INVESTIGATION TEAM REPORT

Texas House General Investigating Committee hearing May 24, 2023
screenshot from here

Five lawyers (I believe that was the number) were hired by the House General Investigating Committee, around March 14, 2023, to follow the accusations of the whistleblowers and make a report. As I said, it is unclear whether most (or rather, it’s unlikely that most) or any of the voting House members watched the video report to the Committee in its entirety, or perhaps read the transcript (I don’t know where that would be) or a written report provided by the investigators (if there was a written report, I also don’t know where that would be).

The investigation team lawyers have strong credentials. I don’t have any knowledge of any of them to distrust them. But, then, there are a whole lot of people involved in this that I didn’t know I had reason to distrust, so there may be plenty of reasons that I’m unaware of.

Twenty counts is a lot. They can be categorized, or grouped.

·        1-6, 8, 18 are Disregard of Public Duty, dereliction of duty

·        7, 17   misapplication of funds or resources

·        9-10   bribery

·        11-12  obstruction of justice

·        13-15 false statements in official records

·        16   conspiracy and attempted conspiracy

·        19-20   unfit for office, abuse of public trust

There’s a rhetorical technique, sometimes called the Galloping Gish (or Gish Gallop, if you prefer). You pile on a lot of things, all at once, each of which could be dismissed, with enough time and effort, but the idea is to overwhelm the opponent with so much that they think, among all this wrongdoing, there must be some truth to the fact the guy is guilty. When you make it an impeachable offense (conspiracy) to defend yourself against the other allegations, I think there might be more counts than necessary. Piling on in a Galloping Gish is what this looks like to me.

There was a securities case, brought in 2015, regarding behavior in 2009 or earlier, if I’m getting that right. The case will be eight years old in July. Every civil litigation regarding the same accusations was long ago dismissed. Yet this case still hasn’t been brought to court. The investigation team pointed out that this meant the defense team never had to go through discovery. They fail to mention that the prosecution hasn't had to go through discovery and actually present their case either.

It seems to me a trivial matter. I may be missing details, but it appears that Paxton was asked by clients for recommendations about a securities investment company. Paxton recommended someone he knows and was associated with—but failed to mention that he got a payment for recommending them. The clients were fully satisfied with the recommendation. They did not complain about any lack of disclosure; someone else trying to take him down did that.

This doesn’t have very much to do with the whistleblower complaints. This suit was there well before Paxton ran for AG, and any employees knew about it when they agreed to work for him. The investigation team report detailed it nevertheless.

Many of the complaints come from anything associated with a real estate developer named Nate Paul. He made a one-time campaign donation of $25,000 to the Paxton campaign, for his first election to AG I believe. It was reported according to law, no illegality there. While it is sizable, the man is extremely wealthy, and that isn’t a huge donation for a man of his budget. He was a friend of Paxton’s prior to and after the donation and election.

There seems to be an attempt to tie the donation to Paxton’s actions that may favor Nate Paul. One of the ones they bring up twice relates to the renovation of Paxton’s house. There was water damage. The Paxtons decided to do a full renovation, rather than simply repair. The investigation team report seems hung up on the fact that Paxton asked for an upgrade on the countertops, to granite; they bring it up twice. This is in a day when any high-end home probably already has granite countertops; they are de rigueur. Someone who talked with the investigation team overheard a conversation between Paxton and the contractor, asking for the upgrade. The contractor said it would be an additional $20,000. Paxton said to go ahead. The contractor said OK, he’d talk to Nate about it.

The assumption was made, I presume, by the person overhearing, that Nate Paul was doing the house renovation as a gift to Paxton in exchange for possible favors. But the Paxtons have the receipts to show that they paid for all the work. It may have been Nate Paul’s company that did it. That would be logical for a person to hire a good friend who does that kind of work. There is nothing to this allegation whatsoever, and yet it occupies a chunk of the investigation team report.

Of course, there’s more. We’ll start with the peripheral one. The claim is that Ken Paxton was having an affair with a woman, and that he asked Nate Paul to give her a job, as a favor to him.

Paxton has said that the whistleblower allegations are all false, innuendo, and gossip. He and his wife remain married (she is a state senator and will thus be on the jury for his trial in the fall). She is independent and powerful in her own right, so why would she stay with a man having an affair?

The media speak of the affair openly, as if it is a known fact. I find this troubling. The one time I met Ken Paxton was at a Tea Party meeting. I’m trying to remember when. I think it was from his 2014 campaign. He convinced me that he was a constitutional conservative, and that was based on his strong Christian worldview. A person willing to break a marriage covenant, it seems to me, would have even less trouble breaking the covenant of the Constitution.

Nevertheless, recommending someone you know for a job at a friend’s place of business seems both normal and legal. The inference is that these behaviors only happen because of corrupt reasons. But there doesn’t appear to be any related illegality. No one knows what position the alleged woman was given nor what she might have been paid, nor did they seem concerned with whether the unknown woman could have been hired because she was capable of doing a particular job.

The investigation team report does claim that there are actions Paxton took that benefited Nate Paul. One of them relates to a search warrant at Nate Paul’s property/offices. Paul’s lawyers were given the list of items to be sought, the brief warrant. But when his lawyers asked for the full search warrant, to know what their client was being accused of, they were refused and got only a heavily redacted version.

The investigation team explained that this is standard; they don’t want the accused to know ahead of time what they’re being accused of, because they could tamper with or hide relevant evidence.

One thing they mention is a conversation about this rather heavy-handed search, and Paxton sympathized, saying he’d suffered that kind of treatment as well, and he didn’t want to go out of his way to help out the FBI. The investigation team—emphasized by the Committee—seemed shocked, shocked! that the top law enforcement officer of the state wasn’t 100% behind a law enforcement body.

However, in this day of SWAT raids on innocent and harmless citizens—including a former US President—some of us might be fully behind Paxton on those sentiments.

Anyway, related to the warrant, Paxton asked for and obtained the unredacted warrant and held it in his office for several days before returning it. Meanwhile, there was a jurisdictional change made such that Paul’s lawyers could seek again to get the unredacted information they sought.

But someone reporting to the investigation team saw that, around this time, Paxton had a staffer hand-deliver a manilla envelope of unknown contents to Nate Paul at Paul’s office.

Paul’s lawyers didn’t seek the unredacted information again. The investigative team assumes it is because they already had the information they needed, because Paxton had illegally given it to Paul in the manilla envelope.

Paxton is being impeached because he handed a manilla envelope to a person.

There was, however, another item related to Nate Paul. He believed his documents had been tampered with. He turned them in for examination. Whoever handled that in the OAG found no evidence of tampering. Also, the whistleblowers claimed that Paul didn’t provide the documents in question. Both, it seems to me, can’t be true.

Paxton asked about it. He asked for a list of documents the OAG lawyers wanted Paul to provide. This was considered interference by the whistleblowers.

I think it was related to this that Paxton hired a lawyer to look further into this matter. The lawyer, the investigation team made a big note of saying, had only five years’ experience and wasn’t a prosecutor, so Paxton had no business hiring him—although they admitted the AG has the legal right to hire who he wants, whether he goes through the official review protocol or not.

I’m surmising here, but it could be that Paxton had lost trust in the staff who was handling these issues. He was aware of them because he was friends with Nate Paul, but the trust issue would go beyond that. So, what may look like giving preferential treatment to a friend could be dealing with corruption in his office. Or maybe the friend was getting preferential treatment—but unless he was getting illegal help, that still isn’t necessarily an impeachable offense.

Note that the investigation team did not think it worth their time to interview Nate Paul or his associates related to any of the questions involving him. And the paperwork they went through was provided by the whistleblowers, who were of course not providing anything exculpatory.

 

BRISBOIS REPORT

a page from the Brisbois report

Let’s look at the other side now.

The Brisbois report lets us know that there was full authority to fire at will by the AG, and political appointees are not subject to whistleblower protection, only public employees. The Brisbois report concludes:

First Assistant Webster has identified, and the objective evidence we have been able to review supports, that each Complainant who was fired was fired based upon that individual Complainant’s poor work performance and, in some cases, clear insubordination.

We’ll take a look at a few examples. There was the former First Assistant Penley. He had warned AG Paxton against doing anything related to any Nate Paul case. And he was very offended that his boss did not do as Penley ordered, and particularly about the hiring of the lawyer, Cammack. So he acted in direct opposition to the AG.

According to the Brisbois report:

After Mr. Penley released incorrect information as part of his official duties at OAG, the Attorney General wished to place Mr. Penley on administrative leave. As mentioned in the OAG Report, OAG found that Mr. Penley misled:

·        Don Clemmer to obtain copies of secret grand jury subpoenas for the unlawful purpose of providing those subpoenas to a third party, namely Johnny Sutton[i].

·        The 460th Criminal District Court Judge, in a court filing, by not disclosing that Penley had within his possession a signed contract between AG Paxton and Cammack that designated Cammack as OAG’s outside counsel. See, e.g., OAG Report at 2.

In addition, after removing the Attorney General’s name from the OAG Seal on OAG letterhead, Mr. Penley sent an unauthorized cease-and-desist letter to Brandon Cammack on September 30, 2020, in violation of direct orders from the Attorney General. This is referred to as the “Penley Letter” in the OAG’s Report. See OAG Report, Ex. 19.

Yeah, the whistleblower was worried about Paxton's “impeachable offenses,” but didn’t see anything wrong with forging documents and lying in direct opposition to his boss.

This next is about a person named Vassar, in relation to trying to get grants that I believe were used to pay for certain OAG staff. Vassar was saying the OAG could not get grants because of the longstanding prosecution filed against AG Paxton in 2015—although that longstanding case was not a hindrance in past years, the whole first term, and the second term up to that point. The Brisbois report says this:

During Lewis Brisbois’s interview of Mr. Kinghorn, Mr. Kinghorn reported his belief that Mr. Vassar had raised this issue in an effort to obtain leverage as part of an effort to force the Attorney General to resign. Mr. Kinghorn’s opinion is buttressed by the fact that Mr. Vassar had approved many of the very same and similar grant applications for several years without expressing any concern.

It seems more likely that Vassar was trying to find a way to get rid of AG Paxton, rather than do the work he was assigned. That might warrant firing.

A third person was a Ms. Mase, who was being fired for abusive behavior toward her subordinates. She was fired right after her meeting with the FBI. She claims the firing was retaliation for her whistleblowing. However, no one in the OAG was aware of her meeting with the FBI, so it couldn’t be retaliatory. The Brisbois report says:

In an interview Mr. De La Garza stated that Mr. De La Garza believes Ms. Mase knew she was going to be dismissed from OAG, and so Ms. Mase likely timed her meeting with the FBI to provide the appearance of a connection between that meeting and Ms. Mase firing. There appears to be no evidence to indicate that any individuals at OAG, including First Assistant Webster, knew beforehand that Ms. Mase intended to meet with government authorities on October 20, 2020, shortly before the First Assistant carried out the prior decision to fire Ms. Mase. If First Assistant Webster and others did not know about this meeting, they could not have retaliated against Ms. Mase for attending it.

More on Mase:

Given Ms. Mase’s insistence on knowing all interactions between Mr. Simpson and the First Assistant, Ms. Mase’s knowledge of OAG placing Mr. Vassar on investigative leave, and the above-mentioned email from First Assistant Webster on October 19, 2020, it seems likely Ms. Mase surmised she would soon be fired or placed on investigative leave. As such, the timing of Ms. Mase’s meeting with federal authorities seems more likely to be an effort to obtain the “job insurance” Ms. Mase has discussed with Mr. De La Garza in light of Ms. Mase’s reasonable perception of the OAG’s pending decision to fire Ms. Mase.

Rather than merely dismissing employees, AG Paxton seemed more likely to put them on paid investigative leave, or to move them to a different department—no loss in pay. It may be that he was too soft on certain people who were intent on doing harm to his reputation and his ability to do his job.

The paper trail shows that all the firing offenses were documented and in process of investigation well before any whistleblowers claimed that status or made their reports. So we’re starting with a rather major lie on their part.

 

CONCLUSION

It could be that the whistleblowers are right, and that the AG is wildly corrupt.

Or it could be that the whistleblowers are among a rather large number of establishment Republicans who don’t want AG Paxton to do what he’s been doing. And there’s a sizable list—things that grassroots Americans approve of, but that elites do not. Some of these actions show up in the list of resources below.

Republican Party of Texas Chair
Matt Rinaldi's statement

I have in the past been persuaded to question AG Paxton’s rulings as well as the rumors of corruption in his office. I depended on people I trust. I now question where those people were getting that info. I actually voted for another person in the 2022 primary. Seeing what looks like a railroading scheme now—so similar to what was done to President Trump for his entire term, and beyond—I think I might have been steered wrong.

There are plenty of people who have written responses to this impeachment. There are also some theories about the reasons. I’ll list a few below, rather than going through those arguments in addition to what is already too long a piece.

To summarize, my personal belief is that the impeachment was unjust. I hope that the Senate trial will bring out all the facts and reveal the corruption wherever it lies. The voters in the state deserve that.

 

MORE BACKGROUND RESOURCES

·        “ANALYSIS: Crony Establishment Will Veto Your Vote” by Michael Quinn Sullivan for Texas Scorecard, May 30, 2023. 

·        “Texas AG Ken Paxton Take-Down – Why Now?” by Devvy Kidd, May 31, 2023. 

·        “Dade Phelan Targets Trump’s Top Lawyer With Illegal Impeachment” by Cary Cheshire for Texas Scorecard, May 26, 2023. 

·        “FEUD: SPEAKER OF TX HOUSE DADE PHELAN VS. TAGKEN PAXTON” by Donna Garner, May 25, 2023. This piece lists a large number of cases AG Paxton has been involved in, which probably explains his popularity with the voters but not the elites. 

·        “Pax­ton Launch­es Inves­ti­ga­tion into Gain-of-Func­tion Research and Mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions by Covid-19 Vac­cine Manufacturers” official OAG press release May 1, 2023. 

·        “Paxton Announces Sec­ond Inves­ti­ga­tion into Texas Hos­pi­tal for Poten­tial­ly Unlaw­ful­ly Per­form­ing ​'Gen­der Tran­si­tion­ing' Procedures” official OAG press release May 19, 2023. 

·        “Texas AG Ken Paxton’s COVID-19 vaccine investigation could stick it to Big Pharma execs” by Miranda Devine for the New York Post, April 30, 2023. 

·        Rep. Schaeffer’s response to the impeachment, May 26, 2023, within an email from Grassroots for America. 

·        “Texas Legislature has a WHORE HOUSE in it...Everything you might want to know about the Texas Coup” BIZPAC email (I don’t know if it originated with them; I saw it passed on from friends before I received it from BIZPAC). 

·        “Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan’s Popularity Plummets Following Lackluster Session” by Brandon Waltens for Texas Scorecard, May 29, 2023. 

·        “A Time for Choosing in Texas” by Wallace Hall Jr, for Texas Scorecard, June 1, 2023. 

·        “WATCH: Texas AG Ken Paxton Holds Press Conference in Response to House RINOs’ “Deceitful Impeachment Attempt” – He Was Railroaded – Urges Supporters to “Petition Your Government” TOMORROW AT 1 PM” by Jordan Conradson for Gateway Pundit, May 26, 2023. 

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[i] Johnny Sutton is the attorney famous (or infamous) for prosecuting two border guards “for using a gun in carrying out a crime” when they shot an illegal intruder at the border. Their long sentence was commuted after a couple of years.

About That Durham Report

The long-awaited Durham report came out on Monday, May 15. It’s over 300 pages, so, while there has been a lot of immediate response, there may also be a longer time for some things to boil up to the surface. There are two main responses:

·        Yes, just as we knew, the whole Russia collusion hoax was indeed an invention of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

·        But why is no one being prosecuted?

So there’s the satisfaction of having the evidence laid out for the public to see—although the public that hadn’t already seen it won’t be fed this information from the press who kept them from seeing what the rest of us saw all along. And there’s also the disappointment that we’re not about to see perp walks of the many colluders who have been fighting against our rights and freedoms.

You can read the Durham Report in full here. 

I’ll do a fairly brief summary of the highlights. And then list a few of the sources I listened to, some of which have a thought or two to add.

The full Durham Report is available here.

 

The Summary

Glenn Beck did a fairly good summary here. I’ll go through what he said, using some of the transcript and an occasional paraphrase of his words:

There was a meeting August 3, 2016, a briefing by CIA director John Brennan, in the Oval Office, with Barack Obama (president at the time), Joe Biden (VP at the time), James Comey (FBI Director at the time), and other senior administration officials. According to Brennan’s handwritten notes and his recollections from the meeting, he briefed those in the room on relevant intelligence known to date on Russian election interference, including “the Clinton Plan intelligence.”

Durham writes, “specifically Director Brennan’s declassified handwritten notes reflect that he briefed the meeting’s participants regarding the alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on the 26th of July of a proposal from one of her campaign advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian Security Services.”

When the Steele dossier comes out, they all know that it is the Clinton Plan intelligence.

When they receive it, they know it is false, that it is the Clinton campaign invention, but they launch a full (not preliminary) investigation anyway. The agents didn’t then or in hindsight have any belief that any of the claims in the dossier were true.

Then they leak the information to the press, knowing it to be false.

There’s more. On August 22, 2016, an FBI cyber analyst sent an email to the Bureau employees and senior intelligence officials informing them of the details of the Clinton Plan. They “failed to remember” any follow-up actions the Bureau might have taken after the second briefing on it.

The FBI, when it got the Steele dossier, knowing it to be the Clinton campaign fabrication they were briefed would be coming—when they got it, they went to Christopher Steele (author of the dossier) and offered to pay him $1 million, and pay his primary sources money, if anyone was able to provide proof (or at least provide plausible evidence).

As Glenn Beck explains, what we see is that, when Hillary Clinton’s operatives couldn’t get anything really solid, they pass the made-up dossier to the FBI. The FBI looks at it and goes, “This is garbage.” “Yeah, I know, but it could be true.” “All right. Offer him a million dollars if he can come up with something.”

FBI Agent Brian Auten traveled to Rome and met with Steele in October 2016. And he made the offer knowing that the dossier relied primarily on one person or sub-source. The Bureau paid that sub-source, Igor Danchenko, around $250,000 (of our tax money) even after he was unable to provide any evidence for a single claim.

The FBI made this payout even though they had significant evidence that Danchenko himself was Russian Intelligence. It had closed a counterintelligence investigation into him in 2011, because agents mistakenly believed he had left the country. The FBI had investigated Danchenko as a possible Russian spy from 2009-2011, after a colleague at the Brooking Institute, the left-leaning think tank where he worked, told the FBI that Danchenko raised the prospect of paying him for classified information if the colleague would join the Obama administration.

A second Brookings employee also told the FBI that he suspected Danchenko of being connected to Russian Intelligence. It became a full-fledged investigation when the FBI realized that Danchenko was a known associate of two other spies and had contacts with known Russian Intelligence officers, and had said he wanted to join the Russian diplomatic service. He also told another person that he worked on “special matters” for the Russian army and that his Russian passport listed him as connected to the Russian military intelligence service.

They paid Danchenko $250,000 to prove that Trump was colluding with people like him. He couldn’t come up with that evidence.

The Clinton campaign, with significant help from the FBI, and at least tacit approval from Obama, Biden, and the other senior administration officials, colluded with Russian spies to interfere with the 2016 election by claiming that Trump was doing the very thing they were actually doing.

Let’s add to that a few details.

The FBI comes out with a statement, after the report came out Monday: “The conduct in the 2016 and 2017 special counsel Durham examined was the reason that the current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which now have been in place for some time.” As Glenn Beck adds, with some irony, “So they fixed it. Nothing to see here. No one went to jail. No one was fired. No one was held accountable. But trust us, they say, we’ve fixed it.”

Except, remember that guy who paid Steele in Rome? Agent Brian Auten? He was a primary figure in squelching the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the 2020 election. 2016 was the first attempt to take out Trump with election interference; 2020 was when they pulled out all the stops, and that was just one of them. So, no, the FBI hasn’t “fixed it,” clearly.

There’s this other niggling detail. I’m not sure yet whether it’s in the report. But the Steele dossier got them the FISA warrant, to spy on the Trump campaign. That was illegal, since they knew the dossier was fake, and was provided by the Clinton campaign, although they hid that information from the FISA judge.

But they kept spying, even after Trump was in the White House. Without any reason or pretext, they spied on a sitting president of the United States. If they would do that, what would they not do?

One question about this period is about the Adam Schiff lie. He was chair of the House Intelligence Committee at the time. Law professor Jonathan Turley tweets this:

Given Durham's findings that there was no basis for the actions taken by the FBI in launching this investigation, this would be a good time for former House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff to reveal that evidence he said showed the Russian collusion… Schiff and other Democrats previously sought to prevent Durham from continuing his investigation and issuing this report.

Yes, I’d like to see exactly what evidence Schiff could produce, that he was referring to back then. But don’t expect media to actually ask the question.

Glenn Beck explains the Durham Report.
screenshot from here

 

The Commentary

Several of the commentators responding have referred to the episode as an attempted coup. That is not hyperbole. By definition, it was “a sudden appropriation of leadership or power; a takeover.” The people are supposed to be in power in America; we choose our leaders, who are obliged to abide by the law and listen to the people in making laws. 2016 was definitely a coup attempt. So was the Ukraine phonecall they impeached Trump for—wherein there were no laws broken, and in reality it was a cautious warning to Ukraine’s new president at the time of corruption in his government—which Biden was deeply involved in.

Then there was the 2020 election—in which they interfered by claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation so as to sway the election. And then there were all the changes in election law, supposedly because of COVID, making cheating easier. A coup is the Occam’s Razor explanation for a feeble candidate such as Biden, who barely campaigned and had no excited support, winning the election with more votes than any candidate in history.

Then there have been the various lawsuits, which in sane times would get immediately dismissed, but in our insane times seem to be an attempt to find something that will make Trump ineligible to run again, or at least make him even more unpalatable to voters. Add to that the raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago, over negotiations of papers the National Archives wanted and that he was cooperating with them on. The coup attempts continue into the foreseeable future.

So, here are a few perspectives I found worth listening to this week:

·       “FBI Insider REVEALS ALL To Mr Reagan - Durham Report EXPOSED” Chris Cole interviews former FBI Agent and current state Senate candidate for Northern Virginia, Mike Van Meter, discussing the Durham Report, May 17, 2023.

·       “LIVE: Inside the New Durham Report: Where’s the Accountability?—Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke” Jan Jekielek on American Thought Leaders for EpochTV, May 15, 2023. 

·       “Durham Bombshell Reveals Palace Coup Against America” Joshua Philipp on Crossroads, for EpochTV, May 16, 2023.  

·       “[DS] Staged A Coup, Treason, FBI/DOJ Cleaning, The 40,000ft View Reveals The Path – Ep. 3070” X22 Report, May 16, 2023.  

·       “Durham Report EXPLAINED: Here’s EVERYTHING we learned” Glenn Beck for The Blaze, May 16, 2023.  [This is the one I reference above.]

Here’s a bonus. Glenn Beck did a special Thursday evening, called "The Reckoning." He recognizes that we’re not satisfied with what we see as crimes being committed without penalty, while unfair accusations and law-fare are being wielded against innocent people. He suggests a plan, and he starts this series with the Biden crime family. He and his research team have identified 150 crimes committed by Hunter Biden—identifying only those with rock solid evidence, ranging from drugs, guns, and prostitution, to influence peddling and tax fraud. These are undisputed and well documented. He suggests that, while we have a partisan, corrupt DOJ who won’t prosecute, those crimes were committed in various states and localities. It’s possible to prosecute at the state or local level, without having to wait for a federal prosecutor. There’s plenty of precedent with various states going after Trump on invented charges. We don’t have to invent charges or evidence; we just have to make use of the evidence.

screenshot from here

Beck has provided the documents. And he asks that we do some crowdsourcing—go through the documents, find crimes that were committed in our state or county or city, and pressure local officials to prosecute. Enough prosecutions from enough places could lead to some eventual reckoning.

The video is here: “The Reckoning: Biden Crime Family” Glenn Beck for TheBlaze, May 16, 2023. 

You can get the documents here.

The Separation

We’re in a time of the separation: wheat from tares, wheat from chaff.

Wheat (left) and tares look similar in their early stages.
image found here

There are two churches only: the church of the Lamb of God, and the church of the devil, called the great and abominable church, or the whore of all the earth, or the mother of harlots.

There’s this description: “And she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.” 1 Nephi 14:11

That is strikingly similar to John’s description in Revelation 13: “[I] saw a beast rise up out of the sea…. And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” A couple of verses later it mentions that all the world worship this beast “whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” That is, except for those who belon to Christ, the whole world worship this beast.

Rising up from the sea, and sitting upon many waters is symbolic-speak for being spread over the whole earth. It’s everywhere.

The church of the Lamb is also all over the earth, although the numbers are small.

There are two groups only: those large numbers who worship this beast, and those, smaller in number but greater in power, who are associated with the Lamb.

There are more tares—weeds that imitate wheat in their beginning stages—than there are the fruitful grain.

In case you’re not familiar with these stories, we know the ending. The tares get separated, then gathered up and burned, while the wheat is safely collected into the garner.

While we can look and plainly see the beast, I don’t think it’s clear how everything will look as it plays out all around us—but we are in the days when it does play out. My best guess is, though, that there are going to be a fair number of people survive the destruction. The ones who have the most to worry about are those who worship devils and idols (Rev. 9:20), commit murder, sorceries (worked with evil spirits), fornication (sexual sin), and theft (Rev. 9:21).

A couple of weeks ago Glenn Beck had a conversation with Jonathan Cahn that I keep coming back to. I haven’t read the book yet, and I only know Cahn from a few podcasts. But this is fascinating. His thesis is that, if there is an exorcism of evil spirits but later they are allowed to return, they return with greater strength than before.

He believes the evil spirits—the ancient pagan gods, if you will—were exorcised from this nation at our founding, through the covenant, our Constitution, that we made with God (capital G). The gospel idea of “no respecter of persons,” i.e., equality before the law, was enshrined, and has spread around the world because of what our founders did.

But there’s this thing that John Adams said of our nation:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

We have to govern ourselves in order to have a limited government. If we don’t govern ourselves, then despotic government will assert rule over us.

We cannot be a secular nation. We need a critical mass of people who serve God and govern themselves.

If we break the covenant with God, according to Cahn, the spirits that were exorcised come back—with a vengeance. He’s not talking merely metaphorically.

In our day we tend to think ancient peoples were primitive in ways we are not. Who would bow down to a handmade statue and do ritual sacrifices to that thing and expect results from the entity it represents? Cahn is pointing out that we, modern as we are, are doing that very thing. I don’t mean we, all of us—not the wheat, but the plentiful tares.

Cahn talks about three main ancient gods, a trinity: Baal, Ashtoreth, and Moloch. There could be other names, depending on which language you’re dealing with. Ashtoreth, the female of the three, also goes by Ishtar, or Aphrodite for the Greeks. All of these gods require blood sacrifice, particularly child sacrifice. All of them encourage sexual promiscuity and deviancy. All of them promise financial reward for those who sufficiently worship them. Then they additionally have their individual attributes, symbols, and worship rites.

Are there literally gods (little g) who are being worshipped? There are only two churches, remember: the church of the Lamb, who is Christ; and the church of the devil. There is a devil. He is an entity without a body, so he’s in the spiritual realm, and during the stage of the earth’s life that we’re in he is allowed to reign in the world. He wields power and influence here—among all nations and peoples. This trinity of gods are all simply aspects of the devil. Possibly there are fallen spirits under him, of those hosts of heaven who chose to follow him in the war in heaven. But anything such spirits do will be under his domination.

The Ishtar Gate, rebuilt in modern Iraq
image found here

So, with that said, let’s take a look at the attributes of just Ashtoreth; we’ll call her Ishtar just because it’s a bit easier to say. Here are some attributes of the ancient goddess, according to Babylonian—Sumerian—writings, and maybe some other ancient sources that Cahn has used:

·        Ishtar is goddess of changing gender; women are made masculine and men are made feminine.

·        Ishtar is goddess of child sacrifice.

·        Ishtar is goddess of prostitution.

o   Greek word for prostitute is porn, or pornay, which the word pornography comes from.

·        She destroys marriage and family.

·        Ishtar is goddess of pride.

·        Ishtar is goddess of sexual parades.

·        Ishtar is goddess of ale houses, or drunkenness.

·        Ishtar’s month is June.

·        Ishtar goes into battle with her foot on the head of a lion.

·        She is the goddess of the gate; two arches in a gate are a symbol of her.

·        She is described as having rainbow eyes, so the rainbow is a symbol of her.

·        She steals things from other gods and makes them her own—example is the rainbow.

·        There’s a dance her followers do during a battle, or a riot.

·        She grinds away the masculinity of men. (Rage against the patriarchy.)

o   Take men away from marriage, men away from women, men away from being men.

o   Her priests dressed as women, spoke with women’s voices; people brought their children to the men dressed up as women, to sexualize the children (such as we see in drag queen storytime).

o   Some were castrated. Men danced before the goddess with their scalpels to celebrate their self-transformation.

Some worship is conscious; some is not. But one way or another, those who do not worship the Lamb of God are worshipping the devil, whether they know it or not.

Let’s take a look at some fairly recent history. The beginning of “gay pride month” was in New York City, at a raid of a same-sex bar called Stonewall. All the signs of Ishtar were there that night. It had two arches in front. It was next door to a bar called The Lion’s Head. There was a bar fight at Stonewall triggered by a masculine woman (lesbian). The riot got so bad, they tried to burn the place down with the police barred inside. During the riot, the people broke out in a dance, speaking the words that go back to the tablets of Ishtar. Weird.

This was the initiation of the return of Ishtar. After that bar fight, gay pride spread around the world. People celebrate gayness and pride for a whole month, with gay pride parades. Countries celebrate pride month when they don’t even celebrate their own country’s founding day—which, wherever that is celebrated is only a day, not a month. Rainbow flags flown on embassies—never has any such flag or symbol been flown at embassies.

It's not natural.

If you’re using a rainbow to show your tolerance and compassion toward LGBTQ communities, you are worshipping Ishtar, who stole that symbol from God, who had given it as a covenant to Noah that He would never again flood the earth.

Are you a wheat or a tare? It’s your choice.

Are all these signs and symbols just coincidence? One or two I might wonder, but that list is getting pretty sizable. What are the odds?

Cahn gives a few more coincidences. There were these three Supreme Court rulings:

·        2003 June 26  Lawrence v. Texas: outlawed anti-sodomy laws

·        2012 June 26  US v. Windsor: struck down Defense of Marriage Act

·        2015 June 26  Obergefell v. Hodges: struck down definition of marriage   

After giving that list, with those coincidental dates, Jonathan Cahn says, “The Supreme Court is not looking at the Babylonian calendar.”  SCOTUS does release most of their decisions by the end of June. But the exact day? 

He explains that, on the Bible calendar as well as the Babylonian calendar, what we call June 26 was the 10^th day of Tamuz. Tamuz is the month of the goddess Ishtar. (Tamuz was the name of one of her lovers that she destroyed.) According to readings in the ancient Babylonian calendar, “The 10^th of Tamuz is appointed to cast a spell to cause a man to love a man.”

After the 2015 ruling, Obama displayed a rainbow on White House—symbolically giving America over to the pagan goddess Ishtar, although of course that was not what he said it meant, only that it meant solidarity with striking down the definition of marriage to lift up gay relationships.

The White House lit with rainbow lights after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell
image found here

The day Biden signed the “Respect for Marriage Act,” which enshrined gay marriage into law, he lit up the White House again with the rainbow. It was the 20^th of Kislev, the day mentioned in Ezra that God said he couldn’t respect a marriage. [I couldn’t find the verse he’s referencing. In the KJV, it is spelled Chisleu (elsewhere Chislev); I found that in Nehemiah 1 and Zechariah 7, but not in Ezra. Cahn likely references chapter and verse in his book.]

There’s some hopeful news to follow. Cahn tells this story. His associate pastor had a dream, didn’t know what it meant, but knew it was meant for Jonathan Cahn, so he described it to him. There were altars, and they began to break open, and all these spirits came out.

Jonathan knew it was about the book he was working on, Return of the Gods. He finished it on June 24, the very day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.  The altar (big altar of 60 million dead babies) was broken. As he put it, the word of God broke the power that evil had had.

Jonathan Cahn talks with Glenn Beck,
screenshot from here

Jonathan Cahn and Glenn Beck have a conversation toward the end about the separation of darkness and light:

JC: When the grays are disappearing, it’s time for the lights to get brighter. You know. And it’s kind of like, if the dark is removing the gray to get even darker, the light has to remove the gray to get even lighter. These are the times we have to shine even brighter.

GB: I haven’t told this for a long time. I grew up in Seattle; 310 cloudy days out of the year. I moved to Phoenix; not a cloud in the sky ever. OK. And I remember one of the first days I was there, I stood outside, and I just watched the shadow that I was casting, because it was so dark and crisp. I had never seen it. I’d always seen kind of just like a shadow here on the table, just barely there, you know, because the sun wasn’t bright. And I’ve taken that lesson my whole life as, only when the light is getting brighter is the shadow more defined and seemingly darker. But the light is there.

JC: Yeah. And that’s an encouragement that— You know, there’s kind of been a gray Christianity, because when everybody’s Christian, it doesn’t necessarily mean something. Everywhere Christian. I grew up in that culture. You….   But now it means something. It means more than it has ever meant. Now, to follow God, to follow Jesus, it’s going to cost, but it’s gonna mean— It’s more important than ever. You know, the candle in the daytime, you barely see it; the candle at night, literally lights up the world. And that’s what we’re supposed to be.

You said something very interesting, because, as you said it, I thought, OK, well, the light’s getting brighter. Well, the light’s coming. You know, we’re getting closer to that. When Hitler, when all hell broke loose on the world, Israel was coming. The prophecies were coming. All that was coming. So all hell breaks loose. So it’s a good sign. You know, we— You know, Jesus is called the Lamb of God. He’s also called the Lion of Judah. And he’s coming….

There’s another video I watched—never heard this guy, Pastor Mark Driscoll, before; he was talking about Elijah and the priests of Baal, overall, which is maybe relevant to today’s discussion, but I’m not going there. In the introductory part, he’s talking about a study from the National Library of Medicine, which came out recently (the video was posted two weeks ago). He tells us:

Epidemiological studies find a positive association between physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence in childhood and same-sex sexuality in adulthood.” Here’s this study, non-Christian study. Today, teens and 20-somethings that are struggling with mental illness and gender confusion, it’s because many, if not most of them, were abused and have trauma. They either were sexually abused, physically abused, or they witnessed trauma and abuse.

And so, wouldn’t the healthy thing to be say, well, if they have trauma and abuse, let’s get them some help and some healing, and see if they’re doing better, and see if they think differently? No, let’s seize their custody from their parents who can no longer care for them, and let’s mutilate them.

It’s new days, but it’s old demons.

Pastor Mark Driscoll, screenshot from here

Yes, the same old demons. Children were pretty vulnerable back in the days when adults were willing to sacrifice them to the gods. Same vulnerability today.

For those of you who resist because of your desire to support friends who face same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, are you really helping them by supporting the choices that move them away from the church of the Lamb? Wouldn’t it be better to just keep loving them, but also encourage them to get help for their trauma? (I wrote about this in more detail here; there is help available in the way of standard, recognized therapy.)

We’re in a time in which there is a separation happening. We were told the prophecy about the wheat and the tares, and we’re seeing it. But we weren’t told this because there’s no hope; we’re told this so we can choose to be wheat. If we’ve been deceived, we can get undeceived; we can repent. We can miraculously change from a tare into wheat, because God does miracles within us.

These symbolic things, as we can see from what is going on around us, are also literal.

There are only two churches: if you’re not in God’s church—written in the Lamb’s book of life—then you’re in the devil’s church. If you’re a tare, you get separated out from the harvest of the wheat and destroyed.

Knowing we have a loving God, I believe He will give every one of us as many opportunities as possible for us to choose Him. He is giving us warnings. He is giving us invitations to come unto Him—and He asks us to pass along these invitations to His lost children. Even after the destructions that await the wicked, He will preach and offer opportunities. Those who want to seek the Good but are deceived will probably find the Good at some point. But those who rebel against God and hate the Good will never be forced into loving God. They will, however, be forced to kneel and confess that He rules and reigns.

All this is to say, be wheat; be fruitful and good. Choose to belong to the church of the Lamb. If you’ve been deceived, come awake now and repent. Today is the day to allow Him to change your inner makeup from a tare into wheat, so you can be gathered in the garners rather than burned and destroyed.

Righteous Warrior

I had planned to sit down and write about something altogether different this Thursday morning. But, first thing, I heard of the death of a friend, Alan Vera. I have written about him frequently. He was the go-to guy on election integrity in the state of Texas, and particularly here in Harris County. I had his number in my phone and called him personally when I had election day questions. (If everybody did that, it’s no wonder HCRP finally got a help line for those issues.)

Alan Vera, speaking at the Cypress Texas Tea Party, November 21, 2022
screenshot from here

Alan passed away this morning, in the state capitol building, just before he was scheduled to testify on several election integrity bills. He was a fixture there during the legislative session. His knowledge and understanding on these matters is unparalleled. People across the state and the nation have been trained and educated by him. He is likely the main reason Texas didn’t allow Dominion voting machines; he showed them to be unreliable. And any good election integrity legislation on the books in Texas likely saw his hand in writing it and getting it passed.

All who knew him are stunned. They had a moment of silence in his honor in today’s hearing.

I have a number of his speeches, long and short, on my phone. I would record him, in case I wanted to quote him later, which I have often done. (See the list of times I’ve written about him below.)

Alan Vera was one of the original founders of True the Vote, along with Catherine Engelbrecht. The first time I met him was when I attended a True the Vote poll watcher training class, and he was my teacher. Hundreds, maybe thousands (I may be vastly underestimating the number), have received poll watcher training from Alan. He stayed with True the Vote until 2014, when he became the Ballot Security committee chair for the Harris County Republican Party. True the Vote is a 501(c)3, which means nonpartisan. He saw that the party needed his particular help more, and he has given that help tirelessly.

There’s a quote that I think fits Alan:

“My life is like my shoes—to be worn out in service.”[i]

I’ve worked with Alan Vera for years on the Senatorial District 7 and Texas platform committees. We didn’t hang out at each other’s houses, but I considered him, along with his wife, Colleen, to be friends. I’ve sat with them at various meetings and candidate forums, and always enjoyed our conversations. I know them to be true righteous warriors.

I will personally miss him. I have followed him on Facebook where it is not all political. He was an Army Ranger, and, as he put it, once you take the oath to protect and defend, you never stop. Almost daily he would put up a quote from Winston Churchill: "We sleep safely because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us," and below that a meme about soldiers doing their work. Here’s one he posted Tuesday.

a post on Alan Vera's Facebook page, Tuesday, May 2, 2023

One of the Vera's foster puppies
from Alan's FB page

Another main feature of his social media was letting us know the progress on their puppy rescue. He and Colleen would foster puppies who would otherwise likely be euthanized. They got them healthy and groomed and somewhat socialized, and then they would see them off on their journeys to be adopted by their “furever families.” He would post photos of them in the process, and about to leave—and on their way and at their new homes when photos got sent to him. We had a dog problem in our neighborhood a few months back; two dogs got loose and attacked our dog. This had happened multiple times recently to other families. We talked to the owner later, and they needed advice on what to do with these dogs. I called Alan, expert on dog rescues as well as election integrity. He gave advice on rescues and who to contact, which I was able to pass along.

This is something he posted last Friday, which seems so appropriate now.

a post passed along on Alan Vera's Facebook page a week ago

He also had a great, and slightly warped, sense of humor. And some of his social media posts showed that side, which was always good for a daily laugh. 

Whenever he had an important talk or training to give, he would ask for our prayers. I would stop what I was doing and pray for him.

The last time he spoke at our Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting, he said something that has stuck with me, and has maybe more meaning now. The words in quotes are his, as I quoted them here: 

“Plan A for election integrity in Texas is that 99% of all adult Texans live their lives according to traditional Judeo-Christian principles.” But the reality is, “Thousands of people across the state have consented to being human agents of powers and principalities of darkness, and are working to undermine the state and this country, which God himself founded.” So his Plan B continues to be: Deterrence, Prevention, and Real-time Intervention.

He was a warrior against those powers and principalities of darkness; he has been doing yeoman’s work here on earth in the fight. The grand story is reaching a climax. We know from scripture how the story turns out. Still, there are battles yet to be waged. Here on earth we will somehow have to continue without him, which feels daunting. But this life here is not the only place where a spiritual battle is waged. I can only assume that, at such a time as this, he was tagged for fighting in the spiritual realm, where such a man as he can be even more effective. After our eventual victory, I look forward to hearing his battle stories of how he helped us win.

 Some of My Posts that Include Wisdom from Alan Vera

·        “Election Debacle Report”—November 21, 2022 

·        “Deterrence, Prevention, and Real-Time Intervention”—July 28, 2022 

·        “Chain-of-Custody Issues"—May 12, 2022” 

·        “When Does Incompetence Become Cover for Intentional Wrongdoing?”—March 7, 2022

·        “Boring Is Good”—November 1, 2011 

·        “Being There”—September 29, 2011 

 

Videos

·        Alan Vera at Cypress Texas Tea Party November 19, 2022 

·        Alan Vera at Cypress Texas Tea Party July 23, 2022 

 

Media Stories Today

·        Harris County GOP Statement on the Passing of Longtime Activist and Ballot Security Chairman Alan Vera—May 4, 2023 

·        “Well Done, Soldier: Remembering Alan Vera” by Erin Anderson for Texas Scorecard, May 4, 2023. 

·        “Longtime Harris County GOP activist Alan Veradies before testifying at Texas Capitol” by Taylor Goldenstein for the Houston Chronicle, May 4, 2023. 

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[i] The quote is from Spencer W. Kimball, former Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as recounted by Gordon B. Hinckley, “He Is at Peace,” Ensign, December 1985, p. 41.