Last week, a copy of the application by the Texas Rangers for a warrant to search County records related to the now infamous vaccine outreach contract was made public. Attached to the application is an affidavit by an officer in the Texas Rangers assigned to investigate public corruption. The affidavit summarizes the basis of the officer’s belief that crimes were committed in connection with the contract and thus for the issuance of the warrant.
The affidavit lays out a detailed history of the contract. What is painfully clear from the narration is that Hidalgo and her staff were determined from the outset to steer the contract to Elevate Strategies. You may recall from my earlier reporting on this scandal, that Elevate Strategies is a one-person company that was run out of a small apartment in Montrose. The principal of Elevate Strategies is Felicity Pereyra. Pereyra is a long-time Democratic operative, having worked in numerous campaigns for Democratic candidates. She has no public health experience.
The Ranger’s narration begins in early January 2021, with a series of texts between Alex Triantaphyllis, who is Hidalgo’s chief of staff, and other senior members of her staff. These texts discuss proposing a contract to specifically hire Pereyra’s company. After some discussion among the staff members, Triantaphyllis prepares a draft of a scope of work based largely on a census contract that had earlier been given to Pereyra. After preparing the draft, Triantaphyllis says to another staffer, “You will need to re-send the draft to her.” From the context, it is clear that “her” refers to Hidalgo.
On January 12, Triantaphyllis reports to the other staff members that “I got her (Hidalgo) to agree with this scope. . . go ahead and send [sic] it to Felicity so we can see what her thoughts are on $$$.” Early on January 13, one of the staffers emails the proposed scope of work to Pereyra and copies Triantaphyllis. Pereyra responds that she will review. The next day, she asks for a phone conference to discuss. Keep in mind that at that time there had been no public disclosure that Hidalgo was even contemplating such a contract for the County. Yet her staff has already determined who the contractor would be, had the proposed and shared a scope of work with her, and apparently had begun to discuss how much she would be paid.
On the evening of January 14, there is a particularly troubling series of texts. Hidalgo personally revises the scope of work document and sends it to her staff. One of staff members, Wallis Nader, responds to Triantaphyllis asking, “What’s the scope is she referring to?” Triantaphyllis responds that it was, “for the thing she was trying to add to Felicity’s scope relating to engaging community groups and stuff.” He adds, “Probably good for campaign purposes in her mind, but anyway, if she has some intricate picture in her head, I say F it and let her define it . . .”
There are two damning things about this exchange. First, it clearly shows that Hidalgo was blatantly lying in the August 24 Commissioners’ Court meeting when she did not know who had been selected until the selection committee made their recommendation and then “found out” that it was the same firm that had worked on the census outreach (Video at ~6:10:50).
To the contrary, Hidalgo was involved up to her neck from the outset in the conspiracy to steer the contract to Pereyra. She did not suddenly discover that Pereyra had previously worked on the census outreach project when she was picked for the vaccine contract as she claimed in Court. She had personally used the census contract as a basis for crafting the scope of work for Pereyra.
Second, while the phrase “good for campaign purposes” might have referred to a “campaign” to vaccinate people, it seems much more likely that it was referring to Hidalgo’s upcoming campaign for re-election, especially considering that political campaigns were Pereyra’s principal background. If it is ultimately proven that Hidalgo and her staff were in fact planning to use data generated by Pereyra for her re-election campaign, some people are going to be serving jail time.
The Ranger’s affidavit goes on to describe how the unexpected bid from UT Health Science Center nearly upset Hidalgo’s plans to steer the contract to Pereyra and the lengths that Hidalgo’s staff went to torpedo their bid. At one point, Triantaphyllis texted another staff saying, “We need to slam the door shut on UT and move on.” Again, all this shows that the purpose was to get a contract to Pereyra, not to get people vaccinated.
It remains to be seen exactly what the legal fallout from this will be. Now that Hidalgo has been caught red-handed rigging the bid, her legal defense seems to be shifting to the argument that it does not really matter because she had the authority under her emergency powers to award the contract without a bid process in the first place. I have some serious doubts about whether that is correct, especially considering that the County intended to use federal funds for this project.
It is quite easy to see how some of Hidalgo’s staff could be indicted for process crimes. The subpoena application specifically refers to “Tampering with a Governmental Document” (Tex.Pen. Code §37.10) and “Misuse of Official Information” (Tex.Pen. Code §39.06), both of which can be felony offenses. Whether those crimes can be imputed to Hidalgo will depend on what additional evidence surfaces. But it certainly appears that someone on her staff is cooperating with investigators, so there is likely more to come.
But regardless of the legal outcome, Hidalgo’s aura of transparency and her claim to adhere to high ethical standards have been shattered. It is hard to imagine Harris County residents will give her a second term after these revelations.
Mr. King, we can’t thank you enough for breaking this down and letting the taxpayers have a window into the world of corruption that currently pervades in large city and county governments. We the people must pay attention and vote these con-artists out of office.
Many responses to this….it exposes the fallacy that “we’re all in this together.” Some are in it to lose everything, and others to get rich. Winners and losers like everything else.
Now, the Elevate contract was eventually cancelled. I believe in terminated with no expenditures charged. But certainly it is a window into the workings of the county government, and the way that federal funding is used to reward patrons. For sure, this is similar to the current carping over the GLO procedure for dispersing the HUD funding for Harvey relief. Everyone one of these politicians wants to have control over that money.
As an aside, I remember when Judge Hidalgo was first elected and suggested that she probably wouldn’t want to run again. Her plan was to attend to a graduate program. Maybe do something to help out in other countries. I am left to wonder if one term corrupted her so much, gave her a drink of the elixir of power, or perhaps the party pressured her to run again, as they may have felt that she was the most likely candidate.
Overall, this story and the GLO controversy have made me lean more toward a libertarian and decentralized view. The taxpayers are forced to pay up by the government gun. The federal agencies get allocations of the money. They take away some money for overhead and administrative costs. Eventually, they dole it out to city, state, county governments, that also take out overhead and administrative costs. At times, the funding is blocked by ineptitude, indolence, or outright corruption. Finally, a little of it may make its way back to the public purpose it was allocated to fulfill. With the HUD Harvey money, the storm was in late August and early September of 2017–four and a half years ago–still hasn’t gotten to the people who need it. Your Founders insurrected against their rightful, democratically elected King for less.
Jason, she was paid ~$750,000. The County has asked for ~$250,000 back. I don’t know whether she has returned any or not.
thanks for the correction. I just read in the Chronicle that they paid out $1.4 million and hope to get $1.2 million back. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how they could have $200,000 of expenditures in one month. Plus, how did they get such a large advance–most government contracts are cost reimbursement, so you spend your money, and then invoice the amount expended in your performance of the work. That is a huge amount to get in one month, for this kind of work–community outreach and public relations. In the article, Hidalgo kindly says that she is not planning to fire any staff over this. I should hope not, when clearly Hidalgo was behind most of this.
As a moderate Democrat, I’m very disappointed County Judge Hidalgo and the corruption scandal she has created. When elected, she promised integrity and transparency. Instead, she has delivered the exact opposite. With felony indictments now very likely, Judge Hidalgo’s misconduct, poor judgment, poor leadership, and general incompetence could drag down the entire Harris County Democratic ticket in November. Harris County residents definitely deserved better. For more, please read our political blog at HarrisCountyDemocrats.com. Thanks.
Excellent blog. You should give up on the Democratic Party and join us at the SAM Party (www.joinsam.org)!
Thanks, but I’m a life-long Democrat. While extremely diverse, I firmly believe the silent majority of Democrats are much more moderate / centralist than the small, but vocal, progressive wing of the Party. To win elections and govern effectively, moderate Democrats just need to speak up and help steer our Party in the right direction. For instance, during his state of the union speech, President Joe Biden forcefully rejected the “defund the police” progressive agenda and he clearly understood that everyday Americans are mainly concerned about inflation, crime, securing our borders, prioritizing in-person (not remote) educational classes, preventing future COVID lockdowns, and addressing our crumbling infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges). His centralist message was a strong rebuke to progressive Democrats, who clearly think (incorrectly) that everyday voters are focused on LGBTQ issues, trans-rights, criminal defendant rights, migrant rights, CRT, abortions, and more government handouts (e.g. student loan forgiveness, free college, free childcare). The Democratic Party will continue to struggle as long as mainstream Democrats remain silent and allow liberals and progressives to prioritize our agenda. The political blog HarrisCountyDemocrats.com was created to give moderate Democrats a voice and, hopefully, help the local Party focus on the mainstream issues important to all Harris County residents. Given time, I’m confident we can make a difference.
The grand jury had three indictments of staff members. No higher ups though.