the fake trans mailers in texas had a tracking number. it leads to a vendor whose only federal political client on record is the house gop's campaign arm. they say it wasn't them.
Photo: a rural mailbox, for illustration. Dave Bezaire, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
via the Texas Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, Chron and Covering Katy News
"Even if your family doesn't accept you as you are, groups like these are ready to become your found family." That line is in the brochure, per Covering Katy News and People Newspapers, which both quote it. Another one, according to Covering Katy: "You don't have to convince your parents."
It was mailed to Texas homes, as we reported Tuesday, by a "Texas Transgender Student Union" that turned out to be a Wyoming LLC with a UPS Store mailbox. Every group it named said it had nothing to do with it. This week the paper trail got a little longer.
who tracked the mailers
A mailer ID on two of the brochures was associated with SnailWorks, a Maryland company that tracks political mail, according to a Postal Service employee who looked up the IDs for the Texas Tribune. SnailWorks then confirmed to the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday that it was hired to track the mailers. It would not say who paid.
Here is where it gets interesting. The National Republican Congressional Committee has paid SnailWorks $57,300 for "list rental" over the past two years, the Tribune found in Federal Election Commission filings, and the FEC search turned up no other listed payments to the company. The Chronicle reports the NRCC is the only federal political group to report paying SnailWorks this cycle.
That is not proof of anything, and both sides say so. An NRCC spokesperson told the Tribune the committee had no involvement. A SnailWorks employee told the Chronicle the NRCC is not the client behind these mailers. What we have is a tracking number, a vendor that will not name names, and a list of one.
the republican who asked paxton
State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, had already asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate, back when he thought the trans group TENT had sent texts that TENT says it never sent. Now he wants to know who actually did. "I expect a thorough investigation regardless of who is responsible, what their political affiliation may be, or which political interests they seek to advance," he wrote to Paxton, the Chronicle and Chron report. Paxton's office did not respond to the Chronicle.
We would also like to know. We suspect Leach would like to know slightly less than he did last week.
who is paying for it already
Not the sender. OutYouth, the Austin nonprofit the brochure lists, closed its in-person spaces through this week. "We didn't send it, but it has stirred up a lot of strong feelings," it told clients in a text that Chron viewed. "Your safety and wellbeing come first, always, which is why we've decided to close through this week."
"We do not purchase mailing lists or contact young people through unsolicited mail, and no information about the youth and families we serve was involved," executive director Jaryn Holbrook Janeway told Chron. "We are reviewing the matter with legal counsel."
So whoever sent a brochure promising trans kids a found family has, so far, managed to shut the doors of an actual one.
