Rick Perry just turned a mugshot into a photo opportunity.
Indictment of Rick Perry
Complete coverage by the Washington Examiner
- Tea Partiers reluctant to laud Rick Perry
- Perry supporters plan rally to greet him at courthouse
- Video: RickPAC releases ad targeting indictments
- Perry kicks back against Texas district attorney with blistering video, no punches pulled
- Perry fights back, calls indictment against him politically motivated
- Philip Klein: The weirdest part of the Perry indictment
- Examiner Editorial: Texas Democrats vying for ‘most ridiculous indictment’ title
- David Limbaugh: Every honorable citizen must condemn the partisan indictment of Rick Perry
The Texas governor, a likely 2016 presidential contender, turned himself in to be booked at the Blackwell Thurman Criminal Justice Center near the state capitol early Tuesday evening.
“I am here today because I believe in the rule of law,” he said, as supporters cheered and applauded.
A Travis County grand jury indicted the governor on Friday for allegedly abusing his power when he used a line-item veto to eliminate funding for a watchdog group whose head, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, was convicted for drunk driving.
After Lehmberg’s drunk driving arrest, Perry told her he would eliminate her group’s funding if she didn’t step down. As she refused to step down, he vetoed $7.5 million that would have gone to the public integrity unit.
“If I had to do so, I would veto funding for the Public Integrity Unit again,” he said.
The indictment charges that he abused his power by trying to coerce her to resign, as Lehmberg is a Democrat and investigates Republican supporters of the governor.
He’s drawn sympathy from unlikely quarters, including the New York Times editorial board.
“Governors and presidents threaten vetoes and engage in horse-trading all the time to get what they want,” reads an Aug. 18 editorial, “but for that kind of political activity to become criminal requires far more evidence than has been revealed in the Perry case so far.”
