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News Distribution Network's footage of Special Prosecutor Michael McCrum announcing the indictment “Like many schemes, it started with vodka,” Christopher Hooks, a blogger and columnist for the Texas Observer, commented.In April 2013, Lehmberg was arrested on drunk driving charges after authorities found her with an open vodka bottle in the front seat of her car, while she was parked in a church parking lot. Lehmberg pleaded guilty, was sentenced to a 45-day jail term, and served about half her sentence—and then she successfully deflected calls from Perry and others for her resignation.At the time of Lehmberg’s arrest, virtually everyone knew that she would plead guilty to misdemeanor charges. Nobody foresaw the governor later being indicted by a grand jury on two felonies.When Lehmberg refused to resign, Perry threatened to veto funding of her Public Integrity Unit—which investigates corruption of local, state, and federal public officials. Sources close to the investigation told me that Perry’s threat happened as the unit’s prosecutors were investigating whether Perry’s political backers and campaign contributors had received preferential and improper treatment in receiving grants from an anti-cancer state agency, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is now running to be Rick Perry’s Republican successor as governor, sat on the CPRIT’s governing board. Abbott’s largest campaign contributors also allegedly benefited from preferential treatment and received grants.
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