Even for a press secretary, $65,000 a year is short of combat pay. So when Kayleigh Lovvorn Date, who works for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, was ordered, on May 17, to shoot documentary video about border security in a cartel-infested border town, she asked what security she could arrange for her team and their equipment.
The answer, she said, was none. There'd be no security team, no protective gear. Her bosses told them to "Just bring our guns" if they were worried. (Date has neither a license nor training.) She asked for a week's delay to work out security plans. That was denied too.
And this for a trip to Bracketville, near Del Rio -- a location the Governor says is “overrun by gangs and smugglers.”
Date's boss, Communications Director Alejandro Garcia, apparently could do little to help. Garcia's boss, Assistant Attorney General Brant Webster, had in mind a series of documentaries on the border as part of Paxton's PR.
Date refused to take the trip. Then, at a meeting the day the team was originally slated to leave, “We were told that because Mr. Webster [had gone there himself], our refusal to travel to these potentially dangerous locations without security on a tight timeline was ‘embarrassing,’” Date wrote.
During Webster's trip, he had been with Paxton, who has a security detail of state troopers. Other law enforcement was also present, and Webster and Paxton both wore bulletproof vests during parts of the trip.
“The communications team was then told that if these expectations and demands were too great, we should look for other jobs,” Date wrote in a formal complaint. “As I personally consider the expectation that employees travel to potentially life-threatening locations without any form of security unreasonable, I am choosing to follow that recommendation.” Date's resignation was effective June 11.
In a letter dated June 23, Enrique Varela, a complaint officer in the AG's office, said that Date's complaint didn't allow him to investigate Webster, since she did not report to or work with him directly.
Varela closed Date's complaint.
If that doesn't raise red flags for you about ethics, consider that eight of Paxton's top aides resigned or were fired within the last year after blowing whistles about Paxton taking bribes and helping out a donor illegally. Webster is a replacement for one of those aides. Paxton is under indictment for securities fraud. Not to mention that he was also the leading force behind Texas's involvement in a recent bid by conservative states to have Obamacare overturned in the Supreme Court.
In a statement, Date's boss said that “Law enforcement prepares security plans for all border trips. We do not release those plans to employees or the public as that could be a security risk for all individuals involved in those trips.” (Emphasis mine.)
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Paxton-spokeswoman-resigns-after-being-pushed-to-16272730.php?fbclid=IwAR1Iy3J0J2Nrp3eWjZm5otFpK2YtfNG4UNR4ewBtiaHQwIrtrekWvCuPP40
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