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Jan 20 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Lawmakers in Texas have proposed expanding the attorney general’s power to prosecute election crimes.

Records we obtained show the Texas AG’s office spent over 22,000 staff hours working on voter fraud cases in 2020 — yet it closed out only 16 minor cases. #FoiaFriday
Last month, the Texas secretary of state confirmed that there was no widespread voter fraud or other serious issues with the state’s 2020 election. texastribune.org/2022/12/19/tex…
The records we uncovered, reported on by the @Houstonchron, also showed that the Texas Attorney General’s office spent almost twice as much time working on voter fraud cases in 2020 as it did in 2018, yet resolved half as many cases.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
The documents also show that between January and October 2020, Texas AG Ken Paxton gave the election integrity unit access to eight more law enforcement sergeants in addition to the nine already assigned to it, and doubled the number of prosecutors to four.
In 2020, the Texas attorney general’s office resolved just 16 voter fraud prosecutions, all involving Harris County residents who used false addresses on the registration forms. None of the cases suggests widespread voter fraud.
Records we obtained also show that the office’s election integrity unit closed just three cases in 2021 and opened just seven new ones. The Houston Chronicle reported that Texas lawmakers still boosted the office’s budget.
houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…

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More from @weareoversight

American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 18
With Roe overturned, there are growing concerns about the potential use of digital surveillance to prosecute people who have abortions. @propublica reports that some websites selling abortion pills are sharing sensitive data with third parties like Google.
propublica.org/article/websit…
Last year, we filed a suite of public records requests to investigate if state attorneys general are in contact with companies that could conduct this digital surveillance.
We sent records requests to the AGs of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah for communications with tech companies, app developers, and data brokers involved in capturing reproductive health data.
Read 5 tweets
American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 13
Yesterday, a South Dakota judge ruled that our lawsuit seeking Gov. Kristi Noem’s travel and expense records could proceed, rejecting efforts by Noem’s office to prevent public accountability.

Here’s how we’ve been investigating Noem’s use of taxpayer dollars. #FoiaFriday
In 2021, we uncovered records that showed Noem spent thousands on decor and furnishings for her office and residence. Her office spent about $60,000 between January 2019 and September 2021.
americanoversight.org/new-records-de…
In May 2022, we requested travel and expense records from Noem’s office. In June, the office rejected the request. We followed up later that month with a “formal” request, which was again denied, leading us to sue in September.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
Read 6 tweets
American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 13
Records featured in the collection that we obtained include multiple documents related to investigations from the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties regarding concerns about the policy.
The CRCL records contain conversations among officials about complaints of “inappropriate family separations” and “troubling accounts regarding abuse, mistreatment, and coercion” from parents of separated children.
A summary of investigations into CRCL complaints lists “new populations of U.S. orphans” and “permanent family separation” as “problematic outcomes” of the policy.
documentcloud.org/documents/2355…
Read 6 tweets
American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 13
NEW: Records recently released in response to our litigation provide new details about Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan’s contacts with prominent election deniers, as well as about his involvement in efforts to cast doubt on election integrity in other states.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
According to the records, Logan — whose firm conducted the discredited “audit” in Maricopa County, Ariz. — spoke directly with Donald Trump-allied election deniers Mike Flynn and Patrick Byrne about the election review in 2021.
Logan also helped draft a subpoena for Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate as they sought to initiate a statewide election investigation in 2021.
Read 4 tweets
American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 12
While he was interior secretary, Ryan Zinke faced at least 15 investigations into his behavior, from taxpayer-funded travel with his wife to his role in a questionable real-estate deal with the energy company Halliburton. Here’s what we uncovered about his time in office.
Beginning in 2017, we started investigating a range of concerns about Zinke's conduct in office, including his decision to exempt Florida from an expanded offshore drilling plan and his arrangement of personal VIP tours of national parks, among others.
americanoversight.org/investigation/…
We obtained a number of records, including documents that revealed that Zinke and his senior aides arranged for various taxidermied animals, including a bison, elk, grizzly, and moose, to be installed in their offices at taxpayer expense.
americanoversight.org/zinke-and-biso…
Read 6 tweets
American Oversight Profile picture
Jan 12
NEW: A South Dakota judge ruled that American Oversight’s lawsuit seeking Gov. Kristi Noem’s travel and expense records could proceed, rejecting efforts by Noem’s office to prevent public accountability and the disclosure of her travel expense records.
americanoversight.org/south-dakota-j… Lawsuit Update: A South Dakota judge ruled that American Ove
We sued Noem’s office in September for failing to release expense records from trips taken while in office, including to multiple partisan events in early 2022.
americanoversight.org/american-overs…
The public still doesn’t know whether taxpayer money was spent on those trips. Rather than releasing the records, Noem’s office has fought in court to avoid public disclosure, relying on unrelated proceedings and misreadings of South Dakota law.
Read 6 tweets

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