Hello Friends,
Like the headline says, a new week means it’s time for a new newsletter— even if the soup is a little thin.
Happy to report, we’re not the only ones facing this dilemma. Valerie Gonzalez, the Rio Grande Valley reporter who has been leading the way on most of the Henry Cuellar FBI Raid story, obviously under some pressure to stay on top of it, released a fairly thin report basically restating and rehashing what’s out there while grafting on some fresh quotes from the Congressman’s political rivals this cycle. You can find her latest here: https://myrgv.com/featured/2022/01/23/candidates-seek-to-gain-ground-amid-fbis-cuellar-probe/
The only thing really popping since our last newsletter are reports from Saturday by ABC News and others, indicating that the FBI is apparently investigating allegations of some kind of wrongdoing related to business and legislative ties with Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic.
One thing that has caught our attention has been the fact that so far, the FBI has only tossed the Congressman’s Laredo home and office— his Washington D.C. locations have apparently been left alone. We also noticed some surprise and alarm on twitter from Washington D.C. political reporters upon learning that the Congressman’s brother is also the Webb County Sheriff.
Fox News has a pretty good summary of the Azerbaijani-related reporting here:
Some of the reporting is focusing on trips made to the Capital of Azerbaijan— a city named Baku. The reporting has a bit of a breathless tone— talking about stays at the 4 Seasons Hotel there. It conjures up images of exotic opulence. Readers should realize, however, that while Baku is a perfectly lovely place, it is hardly a major global vacation destination. During the Soviet years it was an oil town, sort of like Houston. So, imagine someone being accused of ripping off taxpayers by taking a trip to Houston. Houston’s a fine city, but not the place one imagines when fantasizing about an illicit vacation. Honestly, this hardly seems a case of your garden-variety-corrupt-politician attending “very important training and workshops” in the Bahamas.
Locally, Baku is called “The City of Winds,” but unlike Chicago’s sobriquet, “The Windy City”— the name actually does reference meteorological phenomena, and not the hot air blown about by local politics. Weather in Baku year-round is characterized by strong winds, whether hot, cold, or rainy.
It may be that we’re just making something out of nothing, like some crazy conspiracy theorist with a tackboard, push-pins, red yarn and too much time on our hands, but the Federal Government’s focus on the Laredo facets of the Congressman’s operation suggests to us that they may have some evidence implicating someone in the Congressman’s home-town circle, but probably not so much of anything linked to the Congressman himself. The standard of proof for search warrants is not as high as that for a trial, which requires a case proved beyond all reasonable doubt. Warrants only require a certain probability— some smoke is sufficient, even in absence of a fire.
So far, we’re told subpoenas for information have been issued to the Congressman’s wife, and at least one staffer.
If matters do wind up going to trial, we’ll be very interested to see where the case is heard. The Southern District is based in Laredo itself, but so far, the Federal Government seems to have gone out of its way to avoid local involvement— keeping the local Police and others on the sidelines and uninformed while carrying out their search warrant.
It’s entirely possible they may hold the trial somewhere else, though it’s rare for prosecutors to say someone is too popular and beloved, for local jurors to be fair and impartial.
We can expect some courtroom maneuvers at the state level this week— as indigent defense attorneys bring roughly 450 individual cases of trespassing in Kinney County, to Travis County courts. But so far, it’s not clear at all what the Attorney General and Governor plan to do, exactly, though they’ve each stated that the actions will not stand.
Readers may recall, a Travis County judge with the help of the local DA, ruled last week that Operation Lone Star is basically violating the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy clause, and called for the dismissal of charges against an Ecuadorian man named Jesús Guzmán Curipoma, who’d been arrested in Kinney County as part of Operation Lone Star.
We highly recommend reading the following report from Jolie McCullough in the Texas Tribune, if you’re short on background or want to go even deeper on this, find her reporting here: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/21/texas-border-migrant-arrests-travis-county/
If you’re good to go, here’s a statement from Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith, indicating Kinney County’s position on the case:
"Kinney County does not recognize any jurisdictional authority from the Travis County District Court order entered by Judge Jan Soifer on January 13, 2022.
The Defendant, Alberto Guzman Curipoma, was arrested in Kinney County for criminal trespass that allegedly occurred on private property in said County. The Kinney County Attorney’s office has filed criminal trespassing charges against said Defendant, who has been arraigned by the Kinney County Court. Unless ordered differently by a higher court of competent jurisdiction, Kinney County will continue judicial proceedings for said Defendant and set a trial date in the near future."
Summing it up— the County Attorney’s statement suggests that nothing is going to change for Kinney County. Work is going to progress on the backlog of cases that have resulted from Operation Lone Star.
So far the county has filed more than 1500 complaints for trespassing, and since late August, more than 2300 illegal aliens have been arrested by DPS, County Deputies, or Deputies and Constables from Galveston County— here to help out.
About 53 remain locked up and awaiting a court date. Last week, the County Attorney said they’re processing an average of 300 a day— indicating that for perhaps the first time, the County’s courts are exceeding the local arrest rate. It’s a sure bet that a squadron of paralegals from the State and National Guard stationed at the Kinney County Courthouse are partly responsible for the increased rate.
Those illegal aliens presently out of lockup have been dispersed widely. Generally, when released from State custody they wind up in Federal custody, awaiting an immigration decision which could include deportation, or release into the United States. Those released into the U.S. still face trial in Kinney County. So too do those who’ve been deported, though most do not expect them to show. In case you’re wondering, there’s actually a basic form available at all ports of entry, that illegal aliens can fill out for passage into the U.S. to face trial.
Getting back to the original case that started all of this: one of Guzman Curipoma’s attorneys told the Texas Tribune that they’re unaware that Kinney County plans to ignore the Travis County ruling.
By text message, they said they’ll respond, but “don’t believe the County Attorney has the authority to [decide] what court orders should be or not be recognized.”
We’re looking back on a deadly weekend for Texas Lawmen. A Houston Deputy Constable was shot and killed from ambush early Sunday morning. Corporal Charles Galloway was conducting a traffic stop, when a suspect stepped out of the vehicle with what police are calling an “assault-style-weapon” and opened fire.
Authorities say the 47 year old deputy had no chance to defend himself— calling the attack “brutal.” The suspect is described as an hispanic male. Deputy Galloway was apparently well loved— responsible for training new lawmen.
Meanwhile, Saturday, a DPS trooper in the Eagle Pass area died from injuries in a roll-over accident that happened Friday evening.
Trooper Anthony Salas was 37 years old, and had served the nation as a U.S. Marine, before joining DPS. He and other lawmen were trying to arrest 6 illegal aliens when the rollover happened.
Eagle Pass is also where two separate groups of 400 asylum seekers, 800 in total, surrendered themselves Friday. It is a certain bet, that nearly every Border Patrol agent in that County was busy processing those groups, leaving DPS and local law-enforcement as the only agencies in a position to do anything about smugglers and criminals trying to avoid deportation. They are of course, backed up by National Guardsmen, who theoretically have been helpful in funneling illicit traffic into specific areas, but as the Kinney County experience has shown— there’s no substitute for experience when it comes to cutting tracks and finding folks in the brush.
And finally this morning, the controversy over military pay for Texas soldiers assigned to Operation Lone Star is continuing. A very strident release was issued Friday by the Texas Military Department, that essentially called the current wave of criticism “scurrilous lies,” and adopted the tone that all pay issues have been addressed.
You can see the department’s rebuttal of recent criticism here: https://tmd.texas.gov/setting-the-record-straight-on-operation-lone-star
But, no less a figure than former senior enlisted advisor CSM (R) Jason Featherston, is already destroying the rebuttal on twitter— calling for Texas Military Commander Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris to hold a news conference and face questions from the press.
Before retiring, Featherston was the highest enlisted figure at the Texas Military Department.
His activity online suggests that some problems remain, despite the assertions in Austin that everything is fine.
There can be no doubt that most individuals within the Texas Military Department are doing their best. It’s not clear where exactly any blame for these pay issues lie— but as the saying goes, the buck has to stop somewhere.
Reporter Steven Beynom notes:
When the message of “the press are bad” is taking precedence over “here is how we’re taking care of soldiers” something (is) terribly wrong.
“The press are bad” as a statement may be frequently true. But, whipping it out in this case, truly does seem like some weak tea. Instead of trying to blow smoke and blame journalists, it seems to us that the TMD would’ve done better to stay on message about all of the ways they’re trying to get to the bottom of this.
Crisis communications isn’t rocket surgery— but if the constellation of officials at the TMD aren’t getting good advice from their in-house specialists, they should probably hire someone from outside to govern their future communications.
And that should do it for this Monday Morning. As always, this newsletter is independent of our efforts on behalf of the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office, and any opinions and errors contained within are entirely ours.
We hope a great week is waiting for you. We’ll catch up again at the next stop.