March 11, 2022 – KHOU 11 reports Texas Rangers have raided the office of socialist Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo because of an $11M “vaccine outreach contract” awarded to one of her political cronies. The contract was eventually canceled after suspicions arose when it was given to a one-person firm with very little experience. Hidalgo is the same corrupt hypocrite who, back in 2020, was encouraging people to snitch on restaurants operating “at full capacity” and other businesses “that shouldn’t be” open.
Update (4/7/22): The Texas Rangers have expanded their investigation and are now seeking access to Google Docs related to the swindle project. Also see this.
Update 2 (4/14/22): In her first public statement since the indictment of several of her staffers earlier this week, Hidalgo lashed out at prosecutors by calling their case “flimsy,” and claimed “at worst” the motive for bringing these charges is the “weaponization of the criminal justice system for political purposes.” Leftists always portray themselves as the victim while accusing others of doing the exact things they are doing… As we have seen with the witch hunt launched against Donald Trump in 2015, as well as the treatment of the J6 protesters, it is the left who have politicized and destroyed the criminal justice system in America… For a separate timeline detailing the ongoing Lina Hidalgo saga, click here.
Update 3 (4/18/22): The Harris County DA’s office responds to Hidalgo’s criticism by issuing a statement which reads in part, “Grand jurors give up countless hours of personal and professional time to serve and their service should never be disparaged or dismissed… We want to thank the grand jurors in these public corruption cases for their hard work over a five-month period in which they reviewed voluminous documents and heard from numerous witnesses. Our work continues.” Hidalgo’s spokesperson then responded to the response by saying, “No one is disparaging the grand jury – that’s a red herring to deflect attention from recent media reports raising important questions about this investigation. The fact is, we’ll never know what the District Attorney’s Office presented to the grand jurors because the process is secret. As we’ve said since the search warrant affidavits were made public, this investigation appears to have proceeded on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts. We’re confident now that the legal process has moved into public view, the truth will come out and the staffers who have been wrongly accused will be cleared.” How is calling the DA’s indictment “flimsy” and politically motivated not disparaging? And how would calling such comments out for being disparaging be a red herring?
Update 4 (5/5/22): Hidalgo’s indicted Chief of Staff, Alex Triantaphyllis, violates the conditions of his bond less than 24 hours after last appearing in court by approving “the scope of work for a $48 million childcare-related project.” Hidalgo and her people seem to think they are above the law.
Update 5 (5/17/22): Hidalgo continues to whine and play the victim during press conferences and through Twitter. I would imagine she expects to be indicted soon as she appears to be getting more unhinged and desperate by the day.
Update 6 (5/19/22): Harris County DA Kim Ogg issues a statement addressing what she believes are “nearly daily public misstatements” being made by Hidalgo. The statement reads in part, “The criminal charges currently being prosecuted by the Harris County DA’s Office were brought after a diverse grand jury indicted the defendants. An indictment is a finding by a grand jury of probable cause that crime occurred, and in this instance that three ‘public servants,’ while working in the County Judge’s Office, diverted an $11 million contract to a political consultant under the guise of COVID vaccine outreach – money that a more qualified bidder could have used to accomplish the worthwhile goal of increasing awareness and participation in COVID vaccination in underrepresented communities throughout Harris County. In this case, a grand jury spent five months reviewing evidence and listening to testimony concerning the Elevate Strategies contract procurement. Judge Hidalgo has referred to case evidence, to information the investigators and prosecutors don’t have. She has an ethical duty and responsibility to provide any evidence under oath to the Texas Rangers and she should do so immediately.”
Update 7 (6/1/22): Fox Houston reports the aides indicted by Ogg are now trying to have her removed from the case.
Update 8 (10/26/22): FOX 26 contributor Bill King reports Hidalgo’s supposed “outreach” program “was camouflage for a largely political operation using public dollars to maximize Democratic turnout.” Documents from the Harris County auditor show taxpayer money being given to software companies whose work had nothing to do with COVID. According to King, “All of them were Democratic campaign operations. They were all companies that specialize, that provide data services to Democratic campaigns that obviously has nothing to do with COVID. All of them brag about what a great job they did identifying Democratic voters and getting them to the polls.” Thus far, the county has only recovered $200K of the $1.4M in taxpayer dollars given to these companies after the contracts were canceled due to political pressure. Hidalgo’s spokesperson responded to the new revelations by stating, “Judge Hidalgo ended pay-to-play in county contracting, and when the good ol’ boys who lost out couldn’t find a real scandal to attack her on, they made one up… Make no mistake though: that contract had nothing to do with politics; it was about saving lives.” They can claim whatever they like, we have the receipts. Why are socialists and communists such corrupt and entitled low lives? It’s probably because their policy positions only appeal to other corrupt and entitled low lives, and because most people couldn’t be accurately described that way, they must resort to cheating and stealing in order to win.
Update 9 (12/16/22): Hidalgo’s Chief of Staff Alex Triantaphyllis resigns from his position to take another job working for the county which has yet to be determined.
Update 10 (8/7/23): Hidalgo announces she will be taking a leave from office to seek inpatient care for clinical depression. I guess being a corrupt lying pig turned out to be harder than she expected…
Update 11 (11/9/23): The Texas Rangers open up a separate tampering investigation into Hidalgo’s office after the office “concealed” records that were subpoenaed during an inquiry into how the multi-million dollar contract in question was awarded. What a mess.
Update 12 (11/10/23): Like the little commie brat she is, Hidalgo lashes out at district attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, and accuses her of engaging in “dirty politics.”
Update 13 (11/15/23): Hidalgo has now been caught lying about her use of private messaging apps to conduct official business.
Update 14 (5/13/24): It is reported the case against Hidalgo is being transferred to the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton in anticipation of DA Kim Ogg leaving office next year. Ogg said she didn’t want the case to “fall through the cracks.” Neither do I…
Update 15 (2/28/25): Houston Public Media reports Harris County commissioners voted 3-1 in favor of reimbursing Hidalgo and three of her aides $900K worth of legal fees. According to the report, “charges were dropped for two staffers – former policy aide Aaron Dunn and former policy director Wallis Nader. Charges against Hidalgo’s former staffer, Alex Triantaphyllis, will be dismissed after completing 10 hours of community service.” According to Fox 26, the ten hours of community service are related to a “felony tampering” charge, and that instead of fighting the charge in court he agreed to one day of community service. Sounds to me like they may have gotten off the hook for the $11M COVID “outreach” scam they were looking to set up. It should also be noted that former DA Kim Ogg lost her Democrat primary by over 50 points and is now working as a policy advisor for Republican Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey, the only person to vote against the reimbursements.
Update 16 (4/11/25): Chron reports Ken Paxton’s office did not have the evidence to further their investigation into Hidalgo and her staffers. During an appearance on Chris Salcedo’s podcast Paxton said, “There was a case related to some of her staffers. The people in my office who do criminal work – I don’t do the investigations, I am not a criminal attorney – they told me they didn’t have the evidence [and] that some of this testimony we were depending on had changed.” He also said a “certain law officer” who was going to testify in that case had switched his testimony, and the attorneys didn’t feel they had the evidence needed to proceed, adding, “When you’re in my job, and you have 38,000 cases, you’ve got to trust people working for you, and if you find out they’re not doing their job, you’ve got to find out and change the people.”
Update 17 (5/5/25): Biased ABC13 Houston airs segments of an interview with former Harris County DA Kim Ogg in which she accuses the current DA of engaging in a cover-up in exchange for political favors, saying in part, “This is a cover up by Sean Teare in return for support that he received from certain public officials who could be implicated in these investigations.” According to The Texan, “Ogg called for federal agents to investigate and preserve evidence on Friday after her successor announced that felony charges in another public corruption case would be dropped. ‘What I’m concerned about is destruction of the evidence,’ Ogg said in an interview with FOX 26 reporter Greg Groogan obtained by The Texan. ‘Harris County’s own policies allow for destruction of email communications. That’s why I’m calling on the federal government, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate.’”