When news broke yesterday about new staff hires among statewide Republicans in Texas the focus was primarily on Ken Paxton naming ideologue Jeff Mateer as First Assistant Attorney General. The Mateer hire is newsworthy, and we’ll have much more on him in later reports.
Somewhat lost in the shuffle, however, was the movement of the man Mateer is replacing – seasoned GOP hatchet man Chip Roy.
Chip Roy is leaving Paxton’s AG office to run the new Ted Cruz super PAC, Trusted Leadership PAC. The new PAC has been created to direct funds and provide strategic guidance to the group of dark money organizations assembled to promote Cruz and tear down his opponents.
Roy was Cruz’s Senate Chief of Staff who helped plot the moves and set the famously divisive tone for his first two years in office. As a Cruz staffer, and during the short time he served on Paxton’s staff, Chip Roy earned his spurs as a guy willing to carry GOP dirty water – undermining allies, covering for corrupt contractors and promoting racial hostility. Here are just a few of his recent career highlights:
Somewhat lost in the shuffle, however, was the movement of the man Mateer is replacing – seasoned GOP hatchet man Chip Roy.
Chip Roy is leaving Paxton’s AG office to run the new Ted Cruz super PAC, Trusted Leadership PAC. The new PAC has been created to direct funds and provide strategic guidance to the group of dark money organizations assembled to promote Cruz and tear down his opponents.Roy was Cruz’s Senate Chief of Staff who helped plot the moves and set the famously divisive tone for his first two years in office. As a Cruz staffer, and during the short time he served on Paxton’s staff, Chip Roy earned his spurs as a guy willing to carry GOP dirty water – undermining allies, covering for corrupt contractors and promoting racial hostility. Here are just a few of his recent career highlights:
- Smearing a GOP colleague: As Cruz Chief of Staff, Chip Roy launched a smear campaign to take down Cruz’s fellow right-wing Republican and now former Congressman Eric Cantor. What was Cantor’s sin? Attempting a good faith effort to reform the Affordable Care Act rather than blindly pledging to repeal it.
- Covering for a corrupt state contractor: Chip Roy served as AG Ken Paxton’s point man in defending the child support upgrade/Accenture contract debacle – one of our state’s biggest boondoggle contracts. $100 million over budget and far behind schedule, the federal government was forced to step in and suspend the contract. Texas taxpayers have been gouged and child support collection remains antiquated.
- Leading efforts to force deportations: Chip Roy was Paxton’s chief litigator attacking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration that, if overturned, would force deportations. Of course, his work dovetails nicely with Ted Cruz’s recent declaration that as President he would empower federal agents to engage in mass deportations.
Donald Trump appears to have the inside track to end the presidential primary season with the most GOP delegates and perhaps win a majority before the convention. Things are becoming desperate for Ted Cruz. Keep in mind, though, that Cruz has demonstrated time and again that he’s willing to engage in dirty tricks, if that’s what it takes. It’s a good bet that his former staffer Chip Roy moving into a position to oversee Cruz’s Super PACs means things will get even nastier in the coming days and weeks.
