a judge just ordered whoever sent texas' fake trans student mailers to answer questions under oath. their lawyer says the return address was the printer's typo. we'd love to meet this printer.
The historic Travis County Courthouse in Austin, for illustration. Photo: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
via the Austin American-Statesman, CBS News Texas and CNN
The return address on the mailers was a Houston address nearly identical to the real Transgender Education Network of Texas, with one digit removed. On Tuesday, the lawyer for the company that sent them told a judge in Austin that this was a "typo," and that it was the printer's fault, CBS News Texas reported. Somewhere, a printer is having a very bad week.
The judge was not moved. District Judge Jan Soifer ruled that TENT, the real trans advocacy group whose logo, photos and branding were all over the pamphlets, can go ahead with its effort to find out who is behind them, the Statesman reported. She denied the sender's attempt to have the case dismissed, per CNN, and ordered two companies to sit for depositions: Texas Transgender Student Union LLC, the name on the envelopes, and Infobip, the company CBS says helped send the matching text messages. As of Tuesday, Infobip's deposition was set for Thursday and the LLC's for Friday, according to CBS.
who sent the trans mailers
Still unknown, which is the point of the hearing. The "student union" is a Wyoming LLC created in September, and its pamphlets, addressed to the student in each household, started landing around Oct. 17, two days before early voting began. We have been chasing that company since the week they arrived, and following the money since.
TENT's lawyer, Mimi Marziani, told the court the group estimates 3.6 million to 4.2 million mailers went out, a campaign she said would cost far more than TENT's own $1 million annual budget, CBS reported. She said TENT has had to take its website down, suspend programming and hire security. "Somebody has been impersonating our client and sending out millions of unauthorized text messages and mailers to voters across Texas," she told the Statesman after the hearing.
the lawyer with a lot of clients
The company's lawyer is Chris Hilton, a former assistant attorney general in Ken Paxton's office, according to CNN. His argument was the First Amendment. "Nothing here constitutes a violation of civil or criminal law," he told Soifer, and "the first Amendment and Texas law do not bend for speech that is unpopular," per the Statesman. He said the mailers were not political because they named no candidate or party, and accused TENT of wanting to expose his clients to "the social media mob," CBS reported.
Then, after the ruling, he mentioned that he also represents the other side of the text-message operation. "Separately from TTSU, I also represent the parties who are clients of InfoBip," Hilton said, per CBS. Marziani's reply, also per CBS: Hilton seemed to have several "mystery clients" who did not want to be named. Hilton said he will appeal.
A West Texas district attorney, Sarah Stogner, is separately investigating the mailers as possible fraud. The texts started this in mid-October. If Friday's deposition goes ahead, someone from the company will finally have to answer questions they did not write themselves.
