Not that he was ever still a viable presidential contender after his fifty-three seconds of dead air in the 2012 cycle, but this Democrat partisan prosecutorial abuse did its job of stomping out any remote possibility of it. And now that its mission was accomplished, the last charge has been thrown out:
Texas' highest criminal court tossed the second and final felony charge against former Governor Rick Perry on Wednesday, likely ending a case the Republican says helped sink his short-lived 2016 presidential bid.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the abuse-of-power charge, which was filed after Perry threatened — and then carried out — a veto of State funding for a group of public corruption prosecutors after the Democrat head of the unit refused to resign.
Which was entirely within his constitutional powers as governor, it should be noted.
A lower appeals court dismissed the other charge, coercion by a public servant, in July.
The longest-serving governor in Texas history, Perry left office in January 2015 while facing a felony indictment handed down the previous summer by a grand jury in Austin, a liberal bastion in otherwise mostly deeply conservative Texas.
And by the same liberal left commie bastard proseuctor's office that destroyed the career of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, it should be noted.
Perry made just one court appearance in the case, which stems from 2013, when Perry publicly threatened to veto $7.5 million in State funding for Public Integrity Unit prosecutors. His move came after Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who headed the investigative group, rebuffed Perry's calls to resign after she was convicted and jailed for drunken driving.
Perry dismissed the case as a "political witch hunt," while legal scholars from across the political spectrum raised objections about it.
And indeed, it was. Governor Perry's enemies made little attempt to even conceal it.
Again, not that it was necessary, in all likelihood; but they didn't take any chances. And they succeeded: Rick Perry was the first Republican presidential hopeful to run out of donor money and quit the race, is no longer Governor of Texas, and is out of politics.
Not that they didn't also want to put him in the slammer forever. But this will have to do.
UPDATE: Does this clear the way for Rick Perry running for president as an independent to give conservatives an actual choice in November? I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. It's either that, or writing in Scott Walker on my ballot.
Reminds me of those allegations of sexual misconduct against Herman Cain in 2012. After he dropped out of the race, all his female accusers went back into the woodwork they had crawled out of.
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