By now you've heard - no charges for anybody involved the meeting between council members and the historical nerds.
Let's walk back in time...
The District Attorney had referred the case over to the Texas Rangers. At some point a reporter asked the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) if there was an investigation. Mind you they didn't ask if there was an investigation into a specific person or persons. The DPS official writes back to all media outlets simply saying there is an investigation. They didn't say into whom or of what, but they confirmed an investigation existed. All the news outlets refused to follow up for clarity and just assumed they were investigating Jim Tolbert and others.
Then nothing happens for a long time. Two of those who were said to be under investigation have their lawyers reach out to various entities including the Texas Rangers to find out about the investigation. The DPS and their Texas Rangers told both of them independently that no investigation was under way from their end. I can tell you now what I've known all along - at least one person in the DA's office indicated that the reference over to the "Texas Rangers" was done legally, but mainly as a favor to a certain cadre of elected officials and former elected officials. The DAs office knew nothing would come of the request of the Rangers. They knew that the Texas Rangers would sit on the request for long enough to get through the city council elections. Once the Texas Rangers actually picked up the file and read it, they'd simply kick it back to the DA with their "findings." In this case they Texas Rangers found that they didn't have time to deal with local bullshit political faction toddler fights.
Mind you - I was told the above months ago, but couldn't expound upon how I knew where the process would take itself for reasons I think you can figure out.
To be clear - We learned not long ago that the Texas Rangers sent their findings to the DA. What that really meant was that they declined to investigate the situation. Had they investigated the situation there would have been an investigation... but there was none. Not a single person was ever asked a single question by a single DPS representative - Texas Ranger or otherwise.
The DA planned on sitting on this until everyone forgot about it. However, the local news people are real pesky about following up on this type of thing when the news get slow. This forced them to answer the question "where the hell are the frog marches and when can we see Jim Tolbert hung from a tree in that expensive damn park downtown?" The DA's office had to break the bad news - no charges. Nobody did anything wrong.
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(Legal Disclaimer: Everything below here is complete fiction and didn't happen. None of it is true and all the names are not real people, but instead characters in my fictional portrayal of events that probably didn't happen in the past few years in El Paso. None of the stuff below here is true at all! Don't even bother reading it. Major waste of your time.)
You see, Jim Tolbert and a couple other council members weren't doing what Susie and her gang wanted them to do. They needed to remove those people and put in some people who would follow orders. Remember - in a certain local political faction's world, politicians answer to them, not their constituents.
But how would they remove incumbents?
What if an "investigation" popped up and they could tell voters that their rep was going to jail for the rest of their life? That would work, right? The sitting representatives wouldn't have to actually go to jail, but as long as voters thought they were going to be going to jail at some point in the future it would work. But how does one do that?
You take an elected District Attorney who has been on shaky election ground for a while and you make him a deal. You tell him that your political faction won't run a guy against him next time around if he were to make a big stink about this trumped up bullshit ethics complaint. All you gotta do Mr. District Attorney is say you're having the Texas Rangers look into it. We all know they won't, but it will take a while for that to shake out. Just long enough for us to lie to voters about what's going on and get the council members we don't like beaten on election day.
And the DA did what they asked because that DA knows the next election could be his last if this political faction opposed him. And there's nothing legally wrong with that. You can ask the Texas Rangers to investigate a mystery fart on an elevator and all they can do is say "no."
And that's exactly what happened. That's the kind of people YOU PEOPLE keep electing. The kind of people who defame someone through political intimidation of elected officials just to get their way.
How must you feel knowing that you live in a city where elected officials use each other to terrorize enemies? At what point do they start asking the elected Sheriff to send his deputies over to harass you and your family because you want to run for school board? I'm dead serious - this is where you are headed. Poke your head out and try to get politically involved without their permission and see how fast your reputation and job and family take hits from these people.
Think I'm lying? Just look at who has aligned themselves with this faction for this political season. The kind of people who swore they were scared of no one and would never be owned by this political faction. Those people are so terrified they've gone against everything they believe in just to keep from getting in trouble with them. That should scare you.
Also - the wanted to keep Oscar Leeser from running for congress... that's why they tied him up in this.
I will not say that their actions were not shady - I think they were. but you were right. They were found to have done nothing wrong. If Susie is the one who pushed Esparza to make this an ordeal, then she needs to resign and apologize. Especially since her and Vero used to take other elected officials across the border to meet in secret all the time.
Maybe you aren't full of shit all of the time. Norma looks better by the minute.
Posted by: oops | January 19, 2018 at 09:42 AM
Susie's little bitch Liontard doesn't have anything to say now. He should be sued for telling that lie on his blog. He should lose his man card for being Susie's bitch. Somebody needs to own up to what they did.
Posted by: liontard shutup quick | January 19, 2018 at 10:02 AM
EPT (without Bob Moore) is continuing its coverup for Susie/Veronica. The article today on this issue was full of comments from this Larsen guy that insists it was a slam dunk case and everyone is guilty despite what the DA said. They gave lip service to Tolbert, Leeser and Limon comments. Guess EPT just cannot give up their undying support of Veronica and Susie. This Zahira chick is working really hard to ruin her career as a "journalist" by allowing one-sided coverage on local issues.
Posted by: Who Cares | January 19, 2018 at 11:17 AM
I don’t know Norma Chavez. I heard her speak on the radio a couple of times and found her boring, annoying and obnoxious. I met Veronica Escobar once and briefly thought she was charming, And then of course, things changed dramatically for the worse. Dori is an opportunist that has a naked and unabashed Republican banana republic type lust for power. I’m voting for Norma. She almost makes me throw up. But Dori and Veronica make me throw up every time. The lesser of three evils.
Posted by: Baytoe Moore | January 19, 2018 at 02:28 PM
Anytime the DA in El Paso says it's going to the Texas Rangers any complaint is dead and nothing will happen! This is the DA's get out of jail free card for local elected officiala so he doesn't have to be obligated to prosecute them.
Many of you keep electing the dirtbag Esparza so stop whining about corruption in El Paso government!
Posted by: Thomas | January 19, 2018 at 05:33 PM
So if I commit a crime without the intention of committing a crime, DA Esparza won't prosecute me? That's good to know!
It works for rich powerful politicians, maybe it'll work for the rest of us.
But the Open Meetings Act is still state law. It is still illegal for a quorum of a legislative body to meet together without notifying the public of the meeting or allowing the public to witness the meeting. So Leeser, Svarzbein, Limon, Tolbert, and Niland did commit a crime. Esparza is just too lazy and/or corrupt to prosecute.
Posted by: al bundy | January 19, 2018 at 08:43 PM
1. The one and only person who can "push Esparza" into doing anything is his wife.
2. In his last election, Jaime Esparza was forced into a runoff by a worthy female contender and a not so worthy male opponent. More likely than not, Esparza referred the case, because it was "the right thing to do", and he didn't want to alienate any sectors withi his own support base. Esparza isn't ready to retire.
Posted by: Me, Myself, and Eye on EP | January 29, 2018 at 01:00 PM