His lawyers say that, anyway.
Sen. Charles Schwertner
Lawyers for state Sen. Charles Schwertner said Monday that the Georgetown Republican, under fire for allegedly sending lewd messages to a University of Texas at Austin student, submitted his phone to a forensic examiner who “determined that the photo and texts in question could not have come from the senator’s phone.”
“We are hopeful that the University of Texas will do the right thing and exonerate the senator immediately,” the lawyers, Perry Minton and David Minton, wrote in a joint statement. “The voters of Sen. Schwertner’s district deserve to have this information directly from the university.”
Representatives for the Austin flagship have declined to acknowledge or comment on the investigation, citing a need to protect the integrity of the process. A spokesman again declined to comment Monday. The examiner, R3 Digital Forensics of Austin, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The lawyers’ statement said Schwertner delivered his phone to a forensic examiner “to view the relevant contents,” but it did not provide more detail about how the examiner’s determination was reached or who retained the firm.
See here for the last update. It is possible to spoof caller ID in a text message, so it is possible that the grad student in question could have received a text that looked like it came from Sen. Schwertner but didn’t. However, as that link notes, it’s not something that the average person can do without installing a third-party app. What that says is that if this was a fake, it was a premeditated fake. You had to think about what you’re doing, maybe do some research first, to accomplish this. So that raises the question of who had that kind of grudge against Sen. Schwertner? It’s one thing to imagine someone, in a fit of pique and with access to Schwertner’s phone, doing something stupid. This is something else.
Assuming the claim is true, of course. We just have Schwertner’s attorneys’ word for it right now, and it’s possible they may not be telling the whole story. I’ll wait and see what UT and the respected former prosecutor they hired to investigate this before I consider the matter resolved.