Reply #15: "A shocking level of arrogance and disrespect"

[PDittie]

“The attorney general of the state of Texas has exhibited a total disregard for the rule of law.”

– U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack

“I’m not surprised. Greg Abbott is part of the silk-stocking social clique that runs Texas government as if it were their private club.”

– David Van Os

According to a widely reported story, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office forcibly removed x-ray records that were part of pending federal court cases from the federal court’s storage facility without the permission of the judge, and 152 of the x-rays have now gone missing.

Abbott sent armed agents to the facility where the records are being stored by the federal court. The agents brought a subpoena and threatened the storage supervisor with arrest if he didn’t cooperate. “Greg Abbott is a lawyer and an officer of the courts; seizing court records from the court’s storage facility without consulting the presiding judge demonstrated a shocking level of arrogance and disrespect,” said David Van Os, Democratic candidate for Attorney General and Abbott’s challenger in this year’s general elections.

When Judge Jack learned of the removal of the records on July 5, she ordered Abbott to return the x-rays by the next day at noon. When the records custodian reviewed the records that Abbott returned, he found that 152 x-rays were missing.

Judge Jack was not amused by the Attorney General’s conduct, as quoted from transcripts of an August 11th hearing she conducted:

“The arrogance of taking those documents from a federal court-supervised depository is astounding. The attorney general of the state of Texas has exhibited a total disregard for the rule of law by doing this. ...These are people’s personal x-rays…and because of the Attorney General of the State of Texas’ malfeasance, they’re gone.”

Van Os, who is taking his “whistlestop tour” to all 254 Texas counties and speaking in public at every county courthouse, said further:

"I’m not surprised by this arrogant conduct. Greg Abbott is part of the silk-stocking social clique that runs Texas government as if it were their private club. This it the same Greg Abbott who lets the Texas Department of Transportation hide its contracts with foreign companies, who uses the taxpayers’ money to file legal briefs and maps on behalf of the Republican Party, who employs Tom Delay’s cronies, and who refuses to challenge the oil companies on behalf of the people of Texas. Seizing and then losing working people’s personal medical records from a court file is par for his course.”

“This kind of thing won’t happen when I’m Attorney General,” Van Os continued. “The Texas Attorney General’s office will belong to the public and serve the public as the framers of the Texas Constitution intended.”