Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them*

*All apologies to former Senator and Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken, who wrote a great book with this title.  It just fit so perfectly for the topic of this article that I couldn't resist copying it.  I love Al Franken so if this ever gets back to him, I hope he isn't mad.

So, remember back in June when I wrote this post?

The short-ish version of what it covered was this:

A year or so ago, Kim Ogg used taxpayer money to hire Mark Goldberg as an Assistant District Attorney, a politically connected former City Councilman who Ogg had gone to law school with.  He spent a very brief stint in Misdemeanor before being "promoted" to upper management at the office as a "community outreach committee member."  What this actually means is that Ogg hired somebody with taxpayer funds to prosecute, but then reassigned him to plan events designed to get her reelected.  Not that it will matter to voters, but some of us find that to be really illegal.

As part of his job as a fake prosecutor Community Outreach Committee Member, Goldberg quickly became the Sycophant in Chief and planned great events for his candidate District Attorney.  In late June, an e-mail went out from Ogg to all of her prosecutors telling them that they were looking for "volunteers" to help her royal Oggness out at a political event that was thinly disguised as a "voter registration event." The e-mail stated that Ogg would be speaking and all attendees would be the recipients of a "food giveaway."  The e-mail strongly suggested that those prosecutors who failed to "volunteer" would have it negatively reflected in their evaluations.  Not that it will matter to voters, but some of us find that to be really illegal, too.

A copy of that e-mail ended up in my hands and I tweeted it, noting my thoughts on it.  It got retweeted and eventually picked up some media attention.  Since a public servant demanding that the public servants she supervises perform political tasks for her benefit is illegal and the media was paying attention, Ogg was caught in a bit of an awkward situation.  What is an unscrupulous politician to do?

Well, of course, she had to feed the Sycophant in Chief to the wolves.  

Shortly after the media caught wind of Ogg's illegal orders, dutiful Mark Goldberg sent out an e-mail claiming that the Ogg e-mail had been a mistake-riddled "draft" of an e-mail he, himself,  had written and somehow inadvertently sent from Ogg's e-mail.  Still trying to figure out who they thought would actually buy that bullshit story version of events.  Seriously, I have represented some really dimwitted folks who have come up with FAR better stories than that one to explain themselves when caught redhanded. 

Anyhoo, the Office doubled down on just how mistake-filled the Oggberg e-mail had been when office flak Dane Schiller apparently told Houston Chronicle reporter Samantha Ketterer that Ogg wasn't even scheduled to speak at the event as originally stated.  

So as usual, Kim Ogg and her upper Administration pulled some really dirty stuff, denied they did it, and then waited for the attention to pass -- which it promptly did.

It did, that is, until local defense attorney and former prosecutor Nathan Hennigan decided to hit the District Attorney's Office with a request for Public Information for the e-mails surrounding the event.  Ogg spent the past four months fighting the release of those records to Nathan.  Ultimately, he received some really interesting documents and he was kind enough to share them with me and some other folks.  They are wildly entertaining to read in relation to the Ogg e-mail, the Goldberg retraction, and the apparent message from D.A. Spokesman Schiller.

Let's take a look!

1.  Starting with Goldberg's e-mail that the e-mail was just a draft that was unapproved by Ogg.

2.  Continuing on, with Goldberg's statement that it wasn't supposed to be sent under Ogg's name.

3.  And as to whether or not Ogg was going to speak or not?  The D.A.'s Office said this back then . . . 

But the records indicate . . . 

Why do you even lie about something like that?  It makes no sense.  I guess when lying becomes so second nature to you, you stop paying attention to whether or not you are even benefitting from it any longer.

The sad fact of the matter is that literally not one thing here will matter to voters who will almost certainly re-elect Kim Ogg on November 3rd.  It's not because she's good at her job.  It's just because Harris County is firmly a Democratic county for the time being and the lightning rod that is Donald Trump is not going to help matters much for Republican candidates.

Kim Ogg is terrible at her job, actually.  And she lacks the character to hold the Office.  Mark Goldberg's lying e-mails to the entire office don't speak too highly of his character, either.  And lying to the media about such seemingly inconsequential matters as to whether or not somebody is going to speak to a crowd for five minutes?   What's the point?

For an organization tasked with fighting for truth and justice, the Harris County District Attorney's Office sure doesn't seem to know much about truth.