Red alert, this is not good.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday appointed John Scott — a Fort Worth attorney who briefly represented former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit challenging the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania — as Texas’ new secretary of state.
As secretary of state, Scott would oversee election administration in Texas — a task complicated in recent years by baseless claims of election fraud from Republicans in the highest levels of government, fueled by Trump. The former president has filed a flurry of lawsuits nationwide and called for audits in Texas and elsewhere to review the results of the 2020 presidential elections. Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud nationwide, and in Texas, an official with the secretary of state’s office said the 2020 election was “smooth and secure.”
Scott could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Nov. 13, Scott signed on as counsel to a lawsuit filed by Trump attempting to block the certification of Pennsylvania’s election. A few days later, on the eve of a key hearing in the case, Scott filed a motion to withdraw as an attorney for the plaintiffs. Scott’s motion also asked to withdraw Bryan Hughes, a Texas state senator from Mineola who works for Scott’s law firm, as an attorney for the case.
The motion said the attorneys had reached a mutual agreement that the plaintiffs would be best served under different representation. Scott’s law firm was the second in the span of a few days to withdraw from the case.
Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, which supports Democrats for elected office, said Abbott’s “surrender to Donald Trump betrays every Texan.”
“Texas’ already chaotic Secretary of State’s Office will be headed by someone intent on paving the way for Trump’s ‘Big Lie,'” Angle said in a statement. “By appointing a known vote suppressor to oversee our elections, Abbott is knowingly putting Texas elections in jeopardy and our future at risk just to cruelly hang on to power.”
As a reminder, previous Secretary of State Ruth Hughs resigned after calling the 2020 election “smooth and secure”, and then not being able to be confirmed by the State Senate. John Scott may be technically qualified for this position, but the motives here are obvious, and neither he nor Abbott deserve any benefit of the doubt. There are plenty of ways a person in this position can hamstring or undermine the big urban Democratic counties as part of a greater suppression strategy. I’m sure there are some less-publicized aspects of the big voter suppression bill that will empower him to do exactly that. This is an ominous development, and it’s one we need to be prepared to deal with. The Chron and the Texas Signal have more.
“Scott could not immediately be reached for comment.”
Meow.
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