Gov. Rick Perry responds to his grand jury indictments regarding abuse of power

Gov. Rick Perry addressed his recent indictments by a grand jury regarding abuse of power.

It's interesting here that Perry says he had the authority to veto the funding of the state's ethics watchdog unit.  Apparently no one disputes that.

The  problem seems to be that he threatened to cut funding unless Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned after being arrested for drunken driving in April 2013.

The issue at hand seems to be that he THREATENED to do so first, which is what made the case that Perry seemed to leverage his power and force an elected official from office.

A Texas judge then assigned a special prosecutor to investigate. That is how the grand jury - after months of testimony - arrived at charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant, which are both felonies and carry possible prison sentences.

The idea that Gov. Perry would "defund" an elected official's office because they were arrested for being drunk - in TEXAS - is a difficult thing to wrap one's head around.  I grew up in Texas.  If every elected official was run out of office for being arrested while intoxicated, there would be a LOT of offices with revolving doors.

Note Perry's pivot to the border crisis for deflection...