Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted for abuse of power after carrying out a threat to veto funding for state public corruption prosecutors.
The Republican governor is accused of abusing his official powers by publicly promising to veto $7.5 million for the state public integrity unit at the Travis County District Attorney's office. He was indicted by an Austin grand jury Friday.
Perry said he'd veto the funding if the district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, didn't resign. Lehmberg had recently been convicted of drunken driving. The state's Public Integrity Unit operates out of her office.
When Lehmberg refused, Perry carried out his veto, drawing an ethics complaint.
Perry is the first Texas governor indicted in nearly a century. He's leaving office in January, but he's a possible 2016 presidential run.
Entities 0 Name: Perry Count: 3 1 Name: Lehmberg Count: 2 2 Name: Texas Count: 2 3 Name: Rosemary Lehmberg Count: 1 4 Name: Austin Count: 1 5 Name: Rick Perry Count: 1 6 Name: Public Integrity Unit Count: 1 7 Name: Republican Count: 1 8 Name: Travis County District Attorney Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1pwJrJL Title: Rick Perry is basically charging Texas taxpayers $4 million a week for his presidential ambitions Description: On Thursday, the first Texas National Guard troops arrived at the U.S. border as part of Operation Strong Safety, Gov. Rick Perry's (R) unilateral border-security mission. And before rallying the border-bound troops at Camp Swift outside Austin on Wednesday, Perry had spent part of the week in Iowa, making not-so-subtle intimations that he will be coming back a lot before the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in 2016.