Chad’s Morning Brief: Eric Holder Will Travel to Ferguson, Rick Perry’s Attorneys Ready to Fight, and Other Top Stories
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of August 19, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.
Holder to Ferguson
According to the Washington Post, Attorney General Eric Holder is heading to Ferguson, MO on Wednesday to personally oversee the investigation.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will travel to this battle-scarred St. Louis suburb to oversee the investigation of the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager at the hands of a white police officer, the White House said Monday.
Holder’s visit was announced as National Guard troops arrived to back up local and state police. On Monday night in Ferguson, an early evening calm gave way to new confrontations as some demonstrators threw bottles at heavily armed police and officers threw stun grenades and tear gas towards them.
The day was expected to be a crucial test for everybody in charge here, from local police commanders to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) — who had called out the National Guard after chaotic protests Sunday — to President Obama himself. Obama’s decision to dispatch his attorney general was an admission that the teenager’s killing had become a symbol of something enormous: a test of the American justice system and the government’s ability to police the officers who police everyone else.
Perry Rolls Out Defense Team
Texas Governor Rick Perry has a high-powered defense team that is ready to fight against the indictment that was handed down days ago. According to the Texas Tribune, Perry's team slammed the prosecution.
Included on the team is Ben Ginsberg, the veteran Republican lawyer who represented George W. Bush during the Florida recount battle in 2000; Bobby Burchfield, a leading GOP attorney who has successfully fought federal limits on political donations; former Texas Supreme Court Justice Tom Phillips; and Austin defense lawyer David Botsford.
Leading the team is Houston trial lawyer and Texas A&M University Regent Tony Buzbee, a major donor to Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott. At a news conference Monday at Austin's InterContinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel, Buzbee called the indictments an “outrageous assault on the rule of law’’ and predicted Perry would be exonerated of all charges.
“Gov. Perry will fight this indictment 100 percent, and at the end of the day he will prevail,” Buzbee said. “This is nothing more than banana republic politics.”
A special prosecutor announced Friday that Perry had been indicted by a grand jury on two charges: abuse of official capacity, which carries a five- to 99-year prison sentence, and coercion of a public servant, which is punishable by two to 10 years in prison.
The charges stem from Perry’s decision to veto state funding for the public integrity unit, overseen by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who refused to resign after pleading guilty to drunken driving charges last spring.
Perry’s defense team described the indictment as “dangerous” and unprecedented, saying it was an attempt to “criminalize politics” by Perry’s detractors. The lawyers said Perry had an unfettered right to veto the $7.5 million in funding, and at the news conference, they played the scandalous video of her booking to underscore how badly she had misbehaved after her arrest.
You can read the entire story by clicking on the link above.
Other Top Stories:
These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.